


Snapshots

by ChillieBean



Series: Fixed Point in Time [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Blackwatch Era, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempt, Implied/Referenced suicidal thoughts/dreams, M/M, Mentions of Blood, Mentions of Death, Post-Recall, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Fall of Overwatch, Swearing, Team as Family, fictober18
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-07-27 12:55:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 47,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16219478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChillieBean/pseuds/ChillieBean
Summary: A snapshot. A small moment captured, a fixed point in time.Laughter. Tears. Joy. Sorrow. Everything. Nothing.31 snapshots, 31 moments.





	1. "Can you feel this?"

**Author's Note:**

> My Fictober18 fics. [Posted daily on Tumblr](https://chilliebean5.tumblr.com/tagged/Fictober18), updated here when I have the time.
> 
> I'm stepping out of my comfort zone with this one, writing then posting to Tumblr with just one round of edits to boost my confidence in my writing. Therefore unbeta'd. 
> 
> Detailed warnings in the notes of each chapter. If you want anything tagged, just let me know!! I'm sure it goes without saying, but all the stories depicted here are in the same universe.
> 
>  **Contents**  
>  1\. "Can you feel this?" Angela and Genji, rated T  
> 2\. "People like you have no imagination." Jack and Gabe, rated T, implied R76  
> 3\. "How can I trust you?" Moira and Gabe, rated T, part one of the post-Retribution arc  
> 4\. "Will that be all?" Jesse and Gabe, rated M, part two of the post-Retribution arc  
> 5\. Take what you need." Gabe and Moira, Rated T, part three of the post-Retribution arc  
> 6\. "I heard enough, this ends now." Jesse and Gabe/Reaper, rated M, part four (final) of the post-Retribution arc  
> 7\. "No worries, we still have time." Lena and Emily, rated T, Tracily  
> 8\. "I know you do." Reinhardt, Torbjörn and Brigitte, rated G  
> 9\. "You shouldn't have come here." Roadhog and Junkrat, rated T  
> 10\. "You think this troubles me?" Hanzo and clan elder, rated M  
> 11\. "But I will never forget!" Mei and Winston, rated T  
> 12\. "Who could do this?" Jesse, Lena, Zenyatta, Doomfist, Hanzo, Winston, Angela, rated M  
> 13\. "Try harder, next time." Hanzo, Genji and Jesse, rated T, part one of the McHanzo story  
> 14\. "Some people call this wisdom." Jesse and Hana, rated T  
> 15\. "I thought you had forgotten." Jesse and Ana, rated T, implied R76, mentions events in the post-Retribution arc  
> 16\. "This is gonna be so much fun!" Hana and Brigitte, rated G  
> 17\. "I'll tell you, but you're not gonna like it." Lúcio, Genji and Angela, rated T, Gencio  
> 18\. "You should have seen it." Widowmaker and Sombra, rated M  
> 19\. "Oh please, like this is the worst I have done." Hanzo and Genji, rated T  
> 20\. "I hope you have a speech prepared." Jesse and Hanzo, rated T, part two of the McHanzo story  
> 21\. "Impressive, truly." Hanzo and Jesse, rated T, part three of the McHanzo story.  
> 22\. "I know how you love to play games." Hana, Torbjörn and Brigitte, rated T, MekaMechanic  
> 23\. "This is not new, it only feels like it." Hanzo and Genji, rated T, part four of the McHanzo story  
> 24\. “You know this, you know this to be true.” Lúcio, Hana, Brigitte, Genji, Reinhardt, Lena, rated T, MekaMechanic and pre-Gencio  
> 25\. “Go forward, do not stray.” Genji and Zenyatta, rated T  
> 26\. “But if you cannot see it, is it really there?” Satya and Hanzo, rated T  
> 27\. “Remember, you have to remember.” Hanzo and Jesse, rated T, part five of the McHanzo story  
> 28\. “I felt it… You know what I mean.” Jesse and Hanzo, rated T, part six of the McHanzo story  
> 29\. "At least it can't get any worse." Jesse and Fareeha, rated M, part seven of the McHanzo story  
> 30\. "Do we really have to do this again?" Zarya, Reinhardt, Jesse, Hanzo, Fareeha, rated G  
> 31\. "I've waited so long for this." Hanzo and Jesse, rated T, part eight (final) of the McHanzo story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angela and Genji.
> 
> Mentions of injuries, limb loss and cyberization.

Dr. Angela Ziegler looks at her patient from the doorway, watching as he stares out the window. It is a wet winter’s day, rain drips down the length of the panel, pooling on the windowsill.

Her patient is one Shimada Genji, second-in-line to the Shimada clan of Hanamura, Japan. There was a mole within the clan’s ranks, offering inside information to Overwatch to help bring it down. Overwatch knew for a fact that it wasn’t Genji, they still don’t know who it is, but they  _did_ know that Genji wanted nothing to do with that life, and if they were going to break someone for information, it would be him.

At least that’s what they thought.

She wasn’t there when the incident happened. She often wonders if Genji’s outcome would have been different had she been there to offer treatment right away instead of hours later. But there was no sense dwelling on what-ifs when she had a job to do. Genji was presented to her, a hair’s breadth away from slipping away, broken, mangled, large gashes to his limbs and chest, and burns to his face, even though the skin itself wasn’t scorched.

She wasn’t there, but Overwatch was. Once Genji was stabilised, in a medically induced coma, after the surgery which saw him without both legs and his right arm and hooked up to life support, she watched the footage. Again and again, over and over, trying to understand what she saw. She is a woman of science, of empirical evidence, and what she  _saw_ , it couldn’t have been real, even though Genji was living proof of its effects.

Overwatch had no real explanation as to what happened. It didn’t matter which Shimada they arrested and questioned in the weeks that followed, they denied  _any_ involvement of dragons, blue and brilliant and capable of being summoned as part of a ritual. It made no sense and left burning questions as to what exactly caused Genji’s burns.

And now, six months later, after countless surgeries, transplants, cyberization sessions, Genji is somewhat whole, and Angela still has no answers to her questions.

They brought Genji out of the coma a month after the incident. Angela was there as his consulting doctor, as was Commander Reyes, interested to recruit him into Blackwatch, to explain what had happened, and what his new life would entail. Genji reacted exactly how an entitled twenty-five year old would react, learning that three of his limbs were gone. He yelled and screamed, swore in both English and Japanese, and they had to sedate him. When he woke again, he was a little calmer, but perhaps angrier. Not with Overwatch, this time, but with the events that transpired.

He couldn’t believe that his older brother was capable of doing such harm to him.

As much as he was angry, he knew that in order to live a relatively normal life, he needed to be fitted with cybernetics. When he initially refused, Reyes promised him the world, open arms, a place to stay, friends and comrades and the tools to bring down the clan that had robbed him of so much.

He agreed on that alone.

Angela explained what needed to be done to get him there: new lungs and digestive system, grown from his own stem cells and transplanted. Cyberized eyes to restore his vision to its fullest potential. New limbs which will be connected to his nervous system and will provide full sensation of touch. He was angry, but he understood and agreed.

Five months later, and today is his first day of physical therapy. The cybernetics in the fingers of his right hand should allow him to feel things by now, but he has been doing everything with his left hand. He barely moves the right arm, certainly doesn’t touch or pick up anything with it, and every time they try to do touch tests, he refuses.

No more. Physically, Genji is fit enough to leave the medbay. He will start rehabilitation today, and if he passes all psychological evaluations, Blackwatch will take him in. Jesse has spent enough time down here with him that Genji practically is a member of Blackwatch already.

But first, she needs to make sure he has progressed to the point of being able to sense touch before she can discharge him.

Taking a breath, she approaches his bedside. “Good morning, Genji,” she says cheerily. “I trust you slept well?”

“Well enough,” Genji murmurs, not looking away from the window.

Expecting an answer such as that, Angela turns her attention to the equipment he’s still hooked up to, then to his chart on her tablet. Vital signs, blood pressure and heart rate have been steady, he entered REM sleep three times over the course of the night, and he hasn’t had any issues with either the cybernetics or the transplanted organs in well over a month.

“Would you like to be discharged today?”

Genji looks at her, and she can see the hope in his eyes. For the first time in six months, she sees a glimmer of hope. “Yes,” he breathes.

She pulls up a chair and takes a seat. “First, I need you to do a touch test.”

Genji rolls his eyes and huffs, looking at his cybernetic arm. The fingers twitch, and with another huff, he brings his arm over, resting it in his lap.

Angela holds out her hand, and Genji rests his on top. Using her stylus, she taps each finger gently, looking for a reaction. “Can you feel this?”

Genji nods subtly, but his eyes are narrowed on the stylus. It’s just the standard one that came with the tablet, but Jesse at some stage added googly eyes and a feather to the top for hair, and she couldn’t bring herself to destroy it.

Smiling, Angela offers the stylus, and Genji takes it, holding it in his flesh hand while running his cybernetic palm over the top. He smiles, and with each pass, it grows wider.

“I can feel this,” he says, looking at Angela. “I can feel something as soft and light as a feather, as if it was my own flesh and blood.” Then he does something that Angela hasn’t heard him do before; she hears him laugh.

Angela laughs alongside him, doing her best to hold back the tide of emotion. She knows at that moment that Genji will be okay. It might take years to get there, but she knows, deep down, that one day he will be fine.


	2. “People like you have no imagination.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabe and Jack

Jack stands in front of his new desk, placing his box of belongings on top. His fingers trace the Overwatch logo on the tabletop, and it activates, illuminating blue. Athena’s logo spins in the upper-left corner, the AI ready for whatever commands he inputs, otherwise, it is just a welcome screen reading his name.

Looking to his left, he eyes the floor-to-ceiling monitor spanning the most of the length of the wall. Behind him is a window to the outside world with a modest view overlooking the gardens, to his right are two armchairs and a low coffee table, and in front of him the doors to his office.

He can’t help but smile at his new office. It beats his old office, a tiny little thing shared with another agent on the verge of retirement. This is easily twice the size, a hell of a lot nicer, and well deserved, if he is being honest. He worked hard to get where he is now, sacrificed a lot of things, and as he sits in his new chair, sinking into the brand new plush leather seat, he can say it was all worth it.

But just like a dark cloud on a sunny spring day, his mood sours when his door opens and Gabe steps through. He knew Gabe would saunter here eventually and he was hoping later rather than sooner, but here Gabe is, not one minute after  _he_ arrived, and will probably bring with him what he likes to call ‘Hurricane Gabe’.

Gabe gives him the barest hint of a glance before looking around the office, whistling low and appreciative. He walks past him, looking at the monitor set-up, to the window behind him, before walking back to the door again. It’s only then that Jack realises he has his baseball on him, and if he thought his mood was sour before, it’ll be ten times worse in about five minutes.

“Nice office you’ve got,” Gabe says, tossing the ball in the air and catching it again as he paces. Since he’s not on a mission, using it as stress relief, it means he’s pissed off.

Jack sighs, stands and turns his attention to unpacking his belongings. “Not bad.”

“You got a view and everything. The only patch of land on this base with a bit of green.”

Humming, Jack sets the box on the ground. He places his medals on the very top left of the desk, above Athena’s logo. The nautical compass, a family heirloom from his great grandfather’s navy days sits on the right. A picture of him and Gabe from their SEP days goes on the shelf beside the couches. He looks at the empty, remaining shelf space, making a note to get some good hardcovered books. Old novels, he thinks, his own stress relief after a long day, and a pot of tea to go with it.

“Comfy,” Gabe says from behind him, and Jack turns, seeing Gabe in his chair. He places his arms on the armrests, leans back a little, crosses one leg over the other, bounces… seems he’s really testing out the chair. “Could picture myself here, you know.”

“You’re not cut out for a desk job, we both know it,” Jack says calmly, holding back the tide of irritation.

“Doesn’t matter. I was in charge of Overwatch during the crisis, and they give this top job to you after…” Gabe pauses, sighs, and seems to stop whatever he was going to say in his tracks as he stands up again, extending an arm to the chair. “ _Strike_ commander.”

“Jack,” he grumbles, taking a seat. “Nothing’s changed, you know.”

“Going from commander to strike commander is a pretty big change.”

“Gabe, you know what I mean.” Jack huffs, standing and gesturing to the two armchairs. He doesn’t move until Gabe takes a seat, sitting down beside him and resting his elbows on his knees, hands clasped together. “You said you were okay with this.”

“I am!” Gabe retorts, chuckling. He tosses the ball between his hands. “Really, I’m happy for you. I’m just pissed I got overlooked.”

“Your skills—”

“Don’t give me that bullshit,” Gabe seethes, pointing a finger at him. He stares at Jack, boring into him with piercing eyes. “Don’t. Not from you,” he says, calmer, sadder.

Jack inhales and exhales slowly, rubbing his chin. “What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know,” Gabe sighs, throwing his hands in the air as he leans back in his seat. “It just stings, okay? It’ll take a bit of time.” He smirks, and Jack knows that smirk; Gabe’s about to get brash. “Getting used to being ordered around by your skinny white ass.”

Jack snorts, sitting back in his seat. He takes a moment to organise his thoughts, how to approach the revelation that Gabe will be in charge of the brand new covert-ops division. That’s much more suited to Gabe’s style and work ethic. He’ll be able to get his hands dirty, have a smaller team to manage.

Taking a breath, realising there’s no point beating around the bush, he looks Gabe in the eye. “There’s a new position available, and it’s yours if you want it.”

“Oh?” Gabe sits up, looking a little like a kid on Christmas. “What is it? It better not be your second in command. I’ve established I don’t wanna get ordered by your—”

“Skinny white ass, I get it,” Jack says, unable to suppress his chuckle. “It’s covert ops. Petras has a mission lined up, requires deep undercover. It’ll last a few weeks at least. He wants a team, someone I trust, someone loyal and someone who won’t stuff it up.” Jack pauses, searching Gabe’s surprisingly neutral face. “Is that something you’d be interested in?”

“Covert ops? Sounds right up my alley.” Gabe grins, extending a hand, and Jack smiles, shaking his hand. “Guess I’ll be wearing a lot of black, huh? Being covert ops.”

“You always did look good in black.”

“Damn straight I did.” Gabe winks and stands, tossing the ball high into the air and catching it with his other hand. Whatever shit mood he was in has disappeared—the higher he tosses the ball, the happier he is. “So will we be seen as equals? Do I get a strike commander title too?”

“Nope,” Jack says standing. “You’ll still be commander, you’ll still be reporting to me.”

“And your—”

“Yes,” Jack admonishes, his frown turning into a smile when Gabe puts his hands up in surrender. “I put in a good word for you. Can I trust you with this?”

Gabe huffs a laugh, taking a step forward and cupping Jack’s face. He feels a tide of emotion, a flash of memories from countless moments just like this, and he gives in, leaning into the touch only for the briefest of moments. He closes his eyes, savouring it for as long as he can before the voice in his head reminds him of the promise they made, that they wouldn’t do  _this_ again.

“You can trust me,” Gabe murmurs, and Jack opens his eyes. “Always.”

Jack nods, and when Gabe pulls his hand away, he feels a longing, an almost overwhelming urge to reach out, grab his hand and press it to his face so he can feel it again. But he balls his hands into fists and fights the urge, swallowing it down and pushing it back into the box in his heart.

They made a promise.

“I guess this job does suit you,” Gabe says, grinning again as he looks around the office. “People like you have no imagination.”

“‘People like me’?”

“Yeah, you military types, watching from the sidelines, ordering people around.”

“You realise that’s what you were doing during the crisis. We have the same background. You’re insulting yourself!”

Gabe grins, it’s his slightly lopsided trademark troublemaking smile, and Jack realises the trap he’s fallen into. “You’re so easy to work up, Johnny boy.”

Jack rolls his eyes at the use of the pet name, sighing and pinching the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know why I keep falling for it.”

“‘Cause I’m charming and you love it.”

“I really don’t,” Jack grumbles, putting on an air of ignorance, even though he has missed this playful side of Gabe. “Anyway, I have calls to make, and you have a team to organise.”

“That I do,” Gabe says, placing a hand on Jack’s shoulder when he passes him. “Lunch?”

Jack smiles, turning to face the door. “Sure thing. Give me an hour.”

Gabe salutes, opening the door.

“Oh, Gabe?”

Gabe stops, looks over his shoulder. “Yeah?”

“This covert ops team. It doesn’t have a name. You’ve got the honours.”

Gabe turns, stroking his goatee and has the biggest smile plastered on his face. “Blackwatch.”

“Not bad,” Jack says with approval. “I’ll let Petras know.”

Gabe salutes again, then points a finger gun at Jack. “An hour, or I’ll hunt your skinny—”

“Out!”

Jack can hear Gabe’s laughter long after the door closes. He approaches his desk, taking a seat and sighs a big breath of relief. That went  _much_ better than he had imagined.


	3. “How can I trust you?”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 1. Moira and Gabe.

There was a peculiar level of amusement Moira felt, walking down the corridors of Watchpoint: Gibraltar on what will most likely the final time.

She never did like it here. It is too full of young faces, looking to do the world some good.

 _Good_. She has to hold back her laugh. There is nothing good about Overwatch. They have no interest in bettering humanity. In making scientific breakthroughs, advancements in human evolution that could do the world some  _actual_ good. No, they are interested in peacekeeping, meddling in the affairs of other nations when they have no right to. 

Holding back scientific progress.

She will be happy this is the last time she has to see this place, these people in their blue uniforms, walking around their grey corridors.

She will be very happy, indeed.

A hand settles on her shoulder, squeezing gently, and she stops in front of the briefing room where she is to meet her fate. She looks down at the hand, follows the arm up to the face of her security escort, giving him an incredulous look and shooing him away with the wave of her hand, taking great pleasure in the brief look of terror on his face as he pulls his hand away.

 _Amateur_.

She turns her attention to the briefing room door when she hears the raised voices of both Morrison and Reyes. Too muffled to make out, but enough to tell the distinction between Gabriel’s smooth tone over Morrison’s gruff jabs.

There is a small level of remorse she feels for Reyes, he really did do his best to keep her employment with Blackwatch off the books, and it worked for years, which is honestly years longer than she had imagined. It gave her time to really sink her claws in, sow the seeds of doubt into Gabriel’s mind, drive a wedge between him and Morrison it worked better than she hypothesised.

She knew this day would come, though, the day she was found out, and not one part of her is dismayed by that fact.

She perks up when the door opens, and Morrison storms through. He gives her one long, hard glance, grunts, mutters something under his breath and continues on his way.

Her only response is a raised eyebrow, a twisted little smirk on her lips.

“O’Deorain, get in here!”

Moira glances in Gabriel’s direction, the same smirk meeting his scowl. She steps inside the briefing room, standing on the opposite end of the table. Reyes looks more stressed than she has ever seen him, more tired and overworked. He doesn’t meet her gaze, he is buried in the footage on his tablet, something which she knows reveals her Talon ties.

“Leave,” Gabriel grunts, and her security escorts exit the room, leaving her alone with Gabriel. “Sit,” he barks, not looking up from the tablet.

Moira takes a seat, clasping her hands together on top of the table. She watches Reyes, analyses his pure neutral expression which betrays his tone, occasionally glancing to the footage when it changes, observing pictures of herself, Maximilien, Akinjide, Vialli, Antonio.

“Tell me this isn’t true.”

Moira looks at him, now that he is meeting her gaze. She cannot help the smile on her lips. “The evidence is damning if I do say so myself.”

“So you’re not denying it, then.”

“What is there to deny?”

“Cut the bullshit!” Gabriel snaps, pointing a finger at her. “That charade might work on Jack, but it isn’t going to work on me!”

“Off the record, then,” she states calmly. She has no intention of raising her voice and showing her hand in this meeting.

Gabriel gives her one long, hard stare, and she meets it equally, with no intention to back down. He breaks first, shutting off both the tablet and the computer inbuilt into the briefing table, and he leans back in his seat, tapping at the table with his index finger. “You were Talon. This entire time. Right under my nose.”

“Their goals were more in line with my own,” she responds. “They funded my research and gave me the resources to treat your condition. All they wanted in return was information.” 

“What information?”

“Well, I’m hardly a rat,” she chuckles, “but I’m sure you can use your imagination.”

Gabriel sits forward, clasping his hands on the table, a direct mirror to her. “You were instrumental in killing one of your own.”

“Antonio’s vision no longer aligned with Talon’s future,” she shrugs. “He would have been dealt with one way or another, you just happened to get there first.”

“I knew, deep down, that you were too calm given the situation. Your praises of what went down…” Gabriel pauses, shaking his head. “You’re not a killer, Moira, I know that much.”

“There are many things you don’t know about me, Gabriel. Suffice it to say, you  _shouldn’t_ make assumptions.”

Gabriel stares at her for a long time, unblinking, unmoving, and Moira meets this stare. She knows that this scolding is nothing, a mere formality, or a means to clear his conscience, perhaps. They can imprison her, lock her up and throw away the key, but she knows that by the end of the day, she will be out of this horrid compound.

“How about I tell you a fact, then,” Gabriel murmurs, his voice softer than she has heard it in a long time. “You betrayed me.”

“There was no betrayal to be had.”

“Does loyalty mean nothing to you?” Gabriel scoffs. “Antonio. Blackwatch. Me.”

“I was loyal once,” Moira says, keeping her voice neutral even though this has—and always will be—a sore spot. “Loyal to Overwatch when I published my work. Loyal right up until they silenced me, shut me down. I learned at that moment that loyalty is something  _earned_ , not given. You, Blackwatch, gave me the means to conduct my experiments unhindered, I worked for you as a trade-off, getting my hands dirty when the mission called for it. I did what needed to be done.” She pauses, takes a breath and brings her voice down lower, “I will continue  _doing_ what needs to be done.”

Gabriel searches her face, and for the briefest of moments, his eyes glisten, before he turns away, rubbing his chin and staring very intently at the table.

“How can I trust you?” he says eventually, voice barely a whisper.

“To put it simply, you will die without my treatments, and you are too useful to me, Gabriel.”

Gabriel’s eyes snap to meet hers. “Useful?”

“You have an untapped potential within you. Something that Overwatch keeps chained up.” She leans forward, smirk creeping on her lips. “Something  _we_ will unlock.” She pauses, gives Gabriel a moment to process that statement and gives him an opportunity to respond, but when he only stares back, face neutral, her smile grows wider. “There is no place for you here, not anymore. What’s a covert ops division when the public know about it, about you, your names and faces? And do you honestly think the  _good_ Jack Morrison will protect you after this? Do you think he would risk his career, his medals and his statues to protect  _you_? The one who got caught, the one who blew the lid on the secret Blackwatch.”

From the corner of her eye, she sees Gabriel clench his hand into a fist, the tension so tight his whole arm visibly shakes. He rests his hand on his lap in a futile attempt to hide it, and Moira makes her final move.

“Talon will take you in. You and anyone else in Blackwatch. People with your talents sorely needed, and  _they_ are loyal to you.”

She stands when the silence grows even longer, carefully pushing the chair back against the table. “Think about it,” she coos, “that is all I ask.”

Gabriel gives a small, curt nod, something barely there but all the confirmation she needs, before he activates the console in the table. “Come and get her,” are his only words, and his eyes stay on her as the doors open, in the tense moment before she turns to walk away, and she is sure that his eyes are boring into the back of her skull.

Clasping her hands behind her back, she claims this victory. She’s planted yet another seed, one that she is sure will come to fruition.

“Well, if it ain’t the devil herself.”

Moira glances at Jesse, and in the brief moment, she can tell that while he is putting an air of arrogance, he is tense, angry, and can see that vein in his forehead practically throbbing from the tension. So she smirks, shrugs one shoulder and without breaking her stride, says, “Easy now, Jesse, you might want to take a breath. Wouldn’t want you to suffer an aneurysm now, would we?”

Jesse mutters something under his breath, hears a string of swear words also, and she claims  _this_ victory, too.

Then, she makes a promise to herself. If Reyes brings Jesse over, she will personally see him killed. She never did like that cowboy, anyway.


	4. “Will that be all?”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 2. Jesse and Gabe.
> 
> Strong coarse language, violent thoughts and themes, mentions of alcohol

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do want to warn, that I have captured that ruthless, bloodlusty Jesse as hinted at in the Retribution comic. At this stage of his life, he's still very much a wild kid, hasn't experienced a loss that's grounded him, that's made him truly evaluate himself or his life choices.

Jesse paces up and down the corridor of the briefing room, unlit cigar between his lips, clenching and unclenching his hands as he stews on what he wants to say to Gabe. The fact that he has to wait to see him is annoying. Knowing Moira is on the other side of that door is infuriating.

He shouldn’t be surprised that Gabe’s meeting with her, and Jesse hopes that Gabe’s tearing her a new one. It’ll be a damn slap on the wrist for that traitor.

Oh, if Jesse had an opportunity to be alone with her. He’s got a bullet in Peacekeeper with her name on it, in the chamber and ready to go. She should feel damn lucky that he left Peacekeeper in his room, ‘cause if he had her right now, there’d be no stopping him from busting in on their meeting, aiming right between her eyes and putting her down for her betrayal. He’d be doing the world a favour, and the consequences of his actions can be damned.

But no, as it stands, there is a rational part of him, a part that reins in the wild side and keeps it hidden from the rest of the world. He knows for certain now, though, that he’s going to take that picture of him and the Blackwatch team to the training range, slap it on a dummy and shoot until she’s burned from the picture. Then, he’s gonna find the cheapest bottle of bourbon he can get his hands on, get delightfully drunk, pass out on his bed and deal with the hangover whenever he wakes up.

He’s fucking earned it, after this clusterfuck.

Genji’s been surprisingly unhelpful. Took her side, of all things. ‘Antonio got what he deserved,’ he said. ‘She has a point,’ he fucking said. He’s spent the day meditating, will probably spend the night meditating and doing whatever it is he does when he asks not to be disturbed.

He shouldn’t be too hard on Genji. He took the mission a little harder than Jesse originally thought, with mentions about his brother and comments made about his cyborg body. He threw himself out there, too, a little more reckless than that usual, confident Genji Shimada bravado.

Maybe he’ll find Genji after he gives Gabe a piece of his mind and they can get drunk together.

He stops his pacing when he hears Gabe’s voice on the intercom: “ _Come and get her,_ ” and watches the two guards enter the room. Jesse takes a deep breath, clenching and unclenching his hands again. The last thing he needs is to give Moira a reason to look down her nose at him like she’s done countless times before.

When she appears from the room, he says the first thing that comes to mind. “Well, if it ain’t the devil herself.” He doesn’t  _hate_ it, but wishes he thought it through, especially when that damned smirk appears on her lips.

“Easy now, Jesse, you might want to take a breath. Wouldn’t want you to suffer an aneurysm now, would we?”

Jesse stares at her as she walks past him, clenching his hands tight and wishing his eyes would just zap her off the face of the planet. “ _Easy now, Jesse_ ,” he mocks in his best Irish accent. “Yeah, you better not turn back. I’ll fuckin’ end you, wipe your fuckin’ smile off your stupid smug face—”

“McCree!”

Jesse stops his rant, reels from the sheer volume of Gabe’s voice. He peers into the briefing room before enters, Gabe’s looking down at his tablet and paying him no mind, and he approaches the table, pulling out the chair opposite him. Before Jesse sits, he plucks out his lighter and lights up his cigar, and the second that smoke fills his mouth, he sinks to the seat, feeling one hundred times calmer.

“Get it all out of your system?” Gabe asks, tone clipped. Jesse shouldn’t be surprised, he just spent fuck-knows-how-long with her. Jesse saw her for all of three seconds and he wanted to punch the damn wall.

“Will eventually,” Jesse answers, leaning back in his chair. “So, I spent the last two hours in the interrogation room with Jack, Ana and Gérard.”

“I’m aware,” Gabe says, still looking at his tablet. “Where do you think Jack stormed off to when he was done?”

“There were plenty of questions about you.”

Gabe finally looks up and sighs, pushing the tablet aside. He holds out his hand, and Jesse reaches into his breast pocket, plucking out another cigar and placing it in his hand. Gabe peels back the cap with surprising care for someone who is very clearly angry, and when it’s between his teeth, Jesse tosses over the lighter and he lights up. He takes a few puffs and they sit in silence. Gabe looks a little better than he was a minute ago, and Jesse wishes he could say the same thing, but his mind is still racing a hundred miles a minute, and the cigar is doing nothing to calm his still frayed nerves.

Still, he gives Gabe the silence. He deserves that much after all  _this_.

“They question my loyalty?” Gabe eventually asks, voice barely a murmur.

“Yeah,” Jesse sighs. “Told ‘em you’re loyal to Blackwatch, to Overwatch, that you knew nothing about Moira’s allegiances, and that you’d never ever  _think_ about joining Talon.”

“Anything else?”

Jesse takes a puff, leans back enough to rest his feet on the table, crossing one leg over the other before exhaling the smoke. “They wanted to know every single detail of the Antonio mission  _again_. Practically wanted to know the exact time I took a shit, too.”

“Gotta give Overwatch credit,” Gabe mutters, “they’re thorough.”

“It bit ‘em in the ass though,” Jesse replies, waggling his eyebrows.

“Don’t,” Gabe says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’ve had a day and a half as it is, and it’s still daylight.” He pulls his hand away, and Jesse nods, not telling him he told Jack  _two_ times, because Gabe, frankly, looks like shit.

“Shoulda brought a bottle of the good stuff too, huh?”

Gabe huffs a laugh. “Yeah, would’ve been nice.” He looks at Jesse and rubs the side of his face. “She didn’t deny any of it.”

“Pretty hard to deny it when we’ve got evidence.”

“That’s what she said.”

Jesse exaggeratedly shudders. “Can’t believe we finally agreed on something, and it happened to be her guilty, traitorous ass.”

“Should take a picture and put it in my scrapbook,” Gabe says sarcastically, taking another puff of the cigar. He has this look about him, Jesse’s only seen it a handful of times in the years he’s been working with Gabe, this subtle frown and he’s lost in his thoughts. Every time he had this look on his face, he was holding back on something, information, a personal matter, and Jesse’s not entirely sure if he should press for information or not.

But when the silence only drags, and that look doesn’t drop from his face, Jesse knows the move he needs to make. “You okay, jefe?”

“Yeah,” Gabe says absently, still stuck in his thoughts. “Just something Moira said got me a little ruffled.”

“You shouldn’t let her under your skin. She’s done, we don’t ever have to deal with her again.”

“Never say never,” Gabe murmurs, and Jesse bristles.  _That_ is certainly peculiar.

“Jefe,” Jesse starts, and he waits till Gabe looks at him. “What did she say?”

Gabe smiles, chuckles to himself. “It’s nothing, Jesse, really.”

Jesse studies Gabe’s face real hard, but that look he had is gone, and he’s slipped back into the Gabe he knows, which only makes Jesse all the more suspicious. “A'ight,” he says anyway, leaving it be.

For now, at least.

He takes another puff of his cigar, and they fall into a tense silence. Gabe’s behaviour is certainly odd, and given recent events, a small part of Jesse starts to question whether Gabe  _is_ telling the truth, that he knew nothing about Moira being Talon. Then he shuts that down, because the Gabe he knows isn’t a defector. He wouldn’t turn his back on Blackwatch.

“Today has been a shit day,” Gabe says slowly, and Jesse can hear how exhausted he is. “Had the interrogation, had to write the report, then had Jack in my face, then Moira.” He looks at the cigar between his fingers and smiles. “And you, looking after me.”

“You know there’s always a cigar with your name on it.”

“I could always count on you, Jesse, you know that?”

Jesse can’t help but smile, even though it sets his nerves on edge. There are two times Gabe’s shown this level of affection, when he’s been drinking, or when he’s at a crossroads. And since Jesse’s sure Gabe’s stone-cold sober, Moira must have propositioned him. Probably had the gall to ask him to leave Blackwatch and follow her to Talon.

“You’re worrying me now, jefe.”

“Don’t,” Gabe says, and it hits Jesse with a resounding finality to the conversation. “You voiced your concerns years ago and I probably should have listened.”

“Would’ve saved us this world of hurt,” Jesse says, gesturing to the monitors set up on the wall, media attention surrounding the failed mission. “We’d still be in the shadows, wouldn’t be facing this shitstorm.”

“You know it,” Gabe breathes, pressing his thumb between his brows. “I fucked up, Jesse,” he murmurs, voice barely a whisper.

“You didn’t,” Jesse says, standing up and walking around the table, sitting next to Gabe and draping an arm around his shoulders. That piece of mind he wanted to give Gabe before he entered this room is tossed out the window. “You thought hiring her was the right choice. I hate to admit it—” Jesse groans, pauses, tastes the words on his tongue and wants nothing but to spit them out, stomp on them then burn them, not wanting any evidence they left his mouth. “Fuck, I hate to admit it but she  _was_ resourceful on missions.”

Gabe laughs. “Got that on record, you know.”

“I’m fuckin’ done for now,” Jesse chuckles. “End of my career. I’ll be a footnote in the history books, and when they look up my name, there’ll be that quote followed by ‘admitted the devil was resourceful’.”

“I don’t think the Antonio mission would’ve played out differently had she not been there, though.”

“You always had the intention to kill him?”

“No, but he was right: we arrest him, we’re found out, and he’s free within forty-eight hours. This way, we’re found out, but he’s not exactly going to get out.”

“Can’t argue with that, I guess,” Jesse mutters.

“And you wanted him dead, from what I remember.”

“Ain’t arguing with the dead part, boss, just with the aftershock. We could’ve killed him, in and out, no one the wiser, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” Jesse huffs a laugh. “Hell, we could’ve tossed him out of the damn dropship from altitude, called it an accident, an escape attempt gone wrong and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Hindsight’s twenty-twenty.”

“Yup,” Jesse breathes, looking at the extinguished remains of his cigar. “Tell you what, if you’re done with work, how about we go to the cliffs? Got a glass with your name on it.”

“That sounds good, Jesse.” Gabe smiles, sits up. “Will that be all?” he asks, officially ending their recorded conversation.

“Yes sir,” Jesse says, even going to the effort of saluting.

Gabe shuts off the tablet and the desk, stands and stretches his arms over his head. “Fuck today,” he says as his back pops in multiple locations. “Lead the way.”

As Jesse leaves the briefing room, as he walks to his room, as he grabs the bottle of bourbon, walks outside, sits next to Gabe and as they drain the bottle, laughing and joking about all the times Moira did something to piss everyone off, all Jesse can think is this too good to be true.

That this is the calm before the storm.


	5. “Take what you need.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 3: Gabe and Moira.
> 
> Minor medical procedures, mentions of syringes and blood.

Gabe hates standing around, working on someone else’s schedule.

Moira contacted him five days after their meeting, three days after she ‘escaped confinement’ at Gibraltar. Turns out she had a contingency in place in the event she was caught, but in true Moira fashion, she toyed with Overwatch, waited till Jack got real smug about her capture before enacting it.

Suffice it to say, Jack was pissed.

The message, buried under several layers of encryption he had to decrypt himself outside of Athena, gave him a name, address, date and time. He had to take a train to Spain, get on the hypertrain to Venice, enter a dingy bar from the back alley at one a.m. and tell whoever answered the door that he was there to see Mary Shelley.

He was convinced this was some elaborate prank at the very least, and held genuine concern that he’d be knocked out and have various internal organs stolen.

Now, inside the bar and sitting in the darkest corner, hood up to keep his face obscured, it’s one-fifteen, he’s nursing a glass of whiskey and as soon as he musters the nerve to drink it, he’s going to leave, go back to Gibraltar and tell Jack everything Moira said off the record. If there’s another thing he hates, it’s being toyed with.

There was once a time where he had all the power, pulled this dick move and kept Moira waiting. He can think of twenty off the top of his head, right now, so he shouldn’t be surprised that she’s pulling the same move. Still doesn’t make it any better.

“Oh, how the mighty have fallen.”

Gabe turns his head, looking to his right and seeing the shadowy figure beside him. “Moira.”

“Good of you to come all this way,” she says, standing in the light, sly smirk on her face like the cat that got the cream. “A part of me was sceptical.”

“Regardless of whether you lied about me needing treatments or not, I’ve been feeling like shit the last few days and didn’t want to push my luck.”

“Well then, let’s take a look at you,” she coos, standing to the side and outstretching an arm.

Gabe stands, walks down the length of the bar to a dimly lit storeroom housing various bottles of alcohol. Wine racks on the left, vodka, tequila, whiskey and beer on the right.

“Feel free to help yourself to anything.”

Gabe stops in his tracks and turns around. “Anything?”

“For your troubles. Take what you want. Take what you need.”

This all sounds too good to be true, and he probably shouldn’t give in, but fuck that, he had to sneak out of the Watchpoint, travel international, wait in some crappy bar at one a.m. and is about to be poked, prodded, and who-knows-what-else she has planned. So he eyes the whiskey, picks something real nice and expensive and tucks it into his hoodie pocket before continuing on his way.

He walks through another set of doors, into a staff room. Round table and chairs around it in the middle, kitchenette on the left, couches on the right. Moira’s equipment is set up beside the couches, so he supposes whatever she’s going to do is happening here.

“Please, take off your jacket, take a seat and make yourself comfortable,” Moira says, waving at the couches. Gabe sets the bottle on the kitchen table, drapes his hoodie over a chair before sitting on the couch, watching as she puts on a pair of gloves, walks to the fridge and pulls out a tray containing two vials. He recognises his usual, clear serum, but the other thing is something he’s never seen before.

“More than a standard check-up then?”

“We can’t have you coming here once a week, can we?”

Gabe inhales and exhales slowly, watching her every move. He gives her a moment to speak, to tell him what the black liquid is, but when she places the vials down on the coffee table alongside the syringes and pulls a blood pressure monitor out of her bag, it grows clear that she’s not going to say anything. “Care to tell me what it is, then? I’d like to know before you inject it into my body.”

“It is your treatment. Refined, purer, more stable than the old dose. Instead of needing weekly treatments, you should be able to go three months before seeing me again.”

“Three months?” Gabe whistles. “I like the sound of that.”

“Yes, well this current situation is quite inconvenient for the both of us,” she mutters, taking a seat next to him and putting the cuff of the monitor around his arm. “Tell me, have you given my proposition any more thought?”

“A little,” he answers. A little is an understatement, he’s thought long and hard about it. But his thoughts are so clouded, filled with doubts and variables, multiple scenarios where he leaves Overwatch, and scenarios where he stays. On top of that, he’s annoyed with himself that he’s even considered her offer longer than the two seconds to say no and send it packing.

“And?”

“I still need more time,” he murmurs. “I have a lifetime of hard work and dedication to protect humanity to my name.” He watches the cuff fill with air, tightening around his arm. “I’m not about to throw it all away because you have me by the balls.”

“You were always so crude,” Moira chides, looking at the readout on her tablet and nodding. “Your blood pressure is normal,” she murmurs, removing the cuff. “I technically don’t have you by the balls. If I did, I wouldn’t be giving you an extended treatment plan.”

“You’re doing it for your own convenience, not mine.”

Moira sets the blood pressure monitor down beside her and looks at him, long and thoughtful, and to her credit, there isn’t a smirk on her lips. “Are things not going well at the watchpoint?”

“You could say that,” Gabe sighs, cradling his head in his hands. He thinks about telling her that her theory about Jack not having his back is true, that Jack’s barely said five words to him outside of meetings, that he’s doing very little in the way of PR, that he’s handballed it to Ana to save his sorry ass and his statue and medals. But that would be like giving candy to a child who doesn’t deserve it. “They figured you had outside help,” he says instead, keeping it vague, and honestly just giving her information she already suspects or knows. “They’re interrogating everyone in light of recent events. It’s chaos.”

“Oh, I’m sorry about that,” she says, wholly insincerely, and that damned smirk returns. “Truly.”

“Save it,” he mutters.

There’s a long silence as Moira scans him, checks his breathing and heart rate and prepares both syringes.

“And it’s safe for me to take both of those?”

“Of course,” she replies. “Your standard dose will work in the short term, and the new dose will take longer to have its effects. They won’t overlap.” She glances at him. “Sorry, I know needles aren’t your thing.”

“Just get it over with.”

Flicking the clear liquid in the syringe and holding it up to the light, she pulls up the sleeve of his shirt and cold fingertips pinch at his muscle. He watches as she injects him and as she pulls away, handing him a cotton ball for the injection site.

“Tell me,” she starts, placing the spent syringe in a biohazard bin. “How is my favourite cowboy?”

“Jesse’s fine,” he murmurs.

“Has he calmed down?”

“Not really. Why do you care? You never cared before.”

“Just keeping tabs,” she says, shrugging as she holds the black liquid to the light. It’s completely opaque and almost looks like tar. “And how are you?”

“Got all night?” he asks rhetorically. He has no intentions of indulging in this little game, this fishing for information. And he’s sure as shit not about to tell her that he hit his lowest point in his life after their meeting, where he admitted that he fucked up. He’s never, ever admitted a mistake, especially to a subordinate, and he’s sure Jesse is suspicious of him now, which is one more set of eyes he doesn’t need on him.

But he chuckles to himself, meets her gaze and shakes his head. “Fine, otherwise. Aside from the nausea which I know is the beginnings of withdrawal of the treatment, I’m fine. No episodes.”

“That is something I wanted to talk to you about, actually,” she says. “I know we’ve been dampening them, keeping them to a minimum considering this is something only we know about, but would you be interested in harnessing that power? There is a lot that can be done, a lot that you can survive if your cells are allowed to regenerate.”

“No,” Gabe says quickly. “I’ve got enough eyes on me, the last thing I need is to go through that unstable period where my body literally turns to smoke. I can’t afford it, not now.”

“Later, then?”

Gabe glares at her, and surprisingly Moira backs down, holding up her hands in surrender. He looks at his arm and pulls the cotton wool away as she grasps his bicep and pinches below the first injection site.

“I must warn you, this will probably sting.”

“Make it quick.”

With a nod, she injects the syringe. As she pushes on the plunger, he can feel the liquid under his skin, see the lump that forms at the injection site. Then, the burning starts. It spreads down his arm, up his shoulder, he can feel it in his chest, his stomach, his head. He cradles his throbbing head in his other hand, the only tell for pain he’s going to show because he’s sure he’s on the verge of passing out from how intense it is. He squeezes his eyes shut tight as vertigo sets in, and slowly, the pain starts to dissipate, retreat back to his arm and fading into a dull ache around the injection site.

“That was probably the understatement of the century,” he groans, sitting up again and looking at the bead of blood from the site. He takes a fresh cotton ball from Moira. “I’m glad this is once every three months.”

“Indeed,” she says, taking his blood pressure and scanning him again. “You’re vital signs are within normal parameters, we’re done here.”

“Good,” he mutters, tossing the cotton balls on her tray. “Not that this wasn’t delightful, but I need to get back before sunrise.”

“Of course.”

He slides on his hoodie and grabs the bottle of whiskey. “I’ll see you in three months, then.”

“Stay safe, Gabriel,” she says, smirking, waving her fingers. A part of Gabe is wholly suspicious of what she means by that, but he knows she wouldn’t pull anything in the next three months at least, not while there’s so much heat on her that she has to set up in a crappy bar in the dead of the night and use an alias.

With a final nod, Gabe lifts his hood and exits the room, making his way through the storeroom again. He’s about to head into the bar when he stops, backtracks, picks up a second bottle of whiskey and pockets it. He owes Jesse a bottle after the other night, and might as well indulge in some top shelf stuff.

As he leaves the bar behind him, he feels relieved that he won’t have to pull this stunt once a week, that it will be an inconvenience once every three months.

And a part of him is glad that he made it out with all his internal organs intact.


	6. “I heard enough, this ends now.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 4 (final). Jesse and Reaper.
> 
> Canon-typical violence, mentions of alcohol.

Jesse had a bad feeling about this mission from the moment Winston told him he’d be going back to Route 66.

‘You’re our best agent, you know the area intimately,’ Winston said.

He’s not wrong. Jesse is the only American out of the six of them who have answered the recall so far. He’s also the only person between them not currently on a mission or recruitment drive, so he had no choice, really.

Being back in his old stomping ground was strange, to say the least. He hadn’t been in this part of Deadlock territory since Gabe bused in, shutting the entire operation down. He was surprised that shitty little diner where he used to hang out was still open. He was even more surprised that he wasn’t allowed in, told to ‘scoot or cop a faceful of buckshot.’

He didn’t care much anyway, he always hated the coffee there, and he didn’t need coffee at that moment. He supposes he did it for nostalgia’s sake, as stupid as that was. But it didn’t matter. The mission was to investigate after several eye-witness reports claimed the Reaper was frequenting the area. The mission was to watch, report, but do not engage

If only Jesse had realised sooner it was a trap.

He started his observations at the hypertrain station, eager to catch a ride on the line which would take him over the now long repaired bridge Deadlock destroyed. Figured while he was there, he’d keep an eye for a shadowy figure, a man in a cloak, bone mask. Someone who stands out real nice and easy amongst the crowd.

He didn’t see that, though. After he bought his ticket, he saw a man in the distance looking right at him. His face was a little scarred, he had a goatee, and when they made eye contact, he smirked. Jesse’s stomach dropped, then, because the smirk was so hauntingly familiar. It was Gabe. It wasn’t possible, though, Gabe’s been dead for seven years now, but it damn well looked exactly like him.

After making eye contact, after that smirk, the man turned around a corner and by the time Jesse caught up, he was gone. There was nowhere to go, so he couldn’t have been hiding anywhere. Not that Gabe was one to hide. He never hid, he always faced problems head-on.

That’s the reason why the Swiss HQ blew up, after all.

So Jesse went about his day, a little paranoid, a tiny bit frightened—something he’ll never mention to another living soul—but mostly suspicious. It’s possible for people to have doppelgangers, and this man was just Gabe’s.

But when Jesse was finally on the train, he saw him again, one carriage up. Jesse pretended not to notice, not to tip him off, and when the train was moving, when there was no chance for escape, he bee-lined to the next carriage. He had an eye on him, right on him, till he nearly knocked over a kid he was too distracted to see, and after apologising profusely to the parents and after letting the kid wear his hat for a literal second after he begged, the man was gone.

So Jesse searched every carriage. Checked in every bathroom. Made his way from the back of the train to the front, asked if they’d seen anyone of a man matching Gabe’s appearance wander up this far, and of course, they said no.

The man had disappeared. On a moving train.

That was the only piece of evidence Jesse needed that this man was not just  _any_ man.

There was only one person Jesse knew who could move around like that, disappear in one place, reappear in another. One person who could literally disappear in a puff of smoke.

It had to be Gabe. He somehow survived the Swiss HQ explosion. They never did find his body or any kind of remains, after all. Maybe he escaped before it blew up? Maybe, for whatever reason, he had to fake his own death and used that as his excuse.

Jesse stewed on his thoughts for the rest of the journey, wondering if Gabe being here, now, was coincidence or not. When he pulled up to his stop, with no memory of the journey between, he pushed those thoughts aside. He had more important things to worry about, now. To canvass the streets, ask if anyone had seen the Reaper in the last few days.

Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling of eyes on him. He knew he was being watched by Gabe, but Jesse didn’t see him again. And if Gabe wanted to play this little game, then so be it. Jesse’s sure as shit not gonna hide.

And after a full twelve hours on his feet, he came up with nothing. No Reaper sightings, no answers to his questions. From the sounds of it, the Reaper was never here. The reports must have been fabricated, and it made a little sense since he apparently frequented this area and didn’t do anything. He’s a terrorist, death and destruction follows him around, and yet, nothing. No deaths, no harm, no one missing. When Jesse contacted Winston about it, he too agreed it was likely the reports were fake, and that there was nothing more he could do other than check out in the morning, fly back to Gibraltar, and wait for the next Reaper sighting.

Jesse called it a night after that. Bone achingly tired, feet sore, he washed the day away in the shower, stayed in there till the water went cold, dressed for bed in sweats and a t-shirt—cause there’s no way he’s gonna sleep naked in unfamiliar surrounds—before heading into the kitchen for a nightcap.

That’s when he sees the figure standing in the shadows, dressed in black, bone mask over their face. Jesse’s heart leaps into his throat, his fingers curl, aching for the familiar weight of Peacekeeper currently sitting under his pillow. He doesn’t show any of this to the Reaper, though, gives off an air of arrogance, and keeps an eye on him as he heads to the cupboard, grabs two glasses and picks the bottle of bourbon off the bench, placing them on the table and taking a seat.

“Ain’t I lucky?” Jesse muses, pouring the alcohol into the two glasses. “Get my own private visit with you.” He slides the glass across the table, coming to a stop in front of the second chair. The Reaper doesn’t move, just watches. “Suit yourself,” Jesse breathes, downing the lot before pouring himself a second. He doesn’t drink this one, not right away, just spins the glass on the table slowly, eyes boring into that damned mask. “Y’know, it’s rude to come into someone’s place uninvited, then not say anything.”

The Reaper cocks his head to the side slightly, the  _only_ response Jesse gets.

Jesse’s eyes flit to the other glass, then back to the Reaper. “Look, I’ve got an early flight in the morning, and I only came in here for my nightcap,” he says, holding up his glass. “Either say your piece or get out. I don’t have time for this.”

That the Reaper understood, finally making his move. They stalk forward, place a clawed hand on the back of the chair, scrape it obnoxiously on the floor before dropping into it, folding their arms across their chest in an exact mirror of a move Jesse had seen thousands of times before. Adrenaline courses through his veins, his fight-or-flight response kicks in. He should have pieced two and two together. He should have realised that there was a sighting of the Reaper, and Gabe was here,  _here_ of all places.

It takes every single shred of willpower not to react, even though his world crashes in around him.

Gabe  _is_ the Reaper.

“There we go,” Jesse says slowly, lifting his glass. “Isn’t this better?”

The Reaper just looks at him through that blank mask, and Jesse holds the stare until it becomes unbearable, opting to down this entire drink, too, and pouring himself a third.

“You’ve figured it out,” the Reaper says, his voice deep and guttural, so much so it sends a shiver right down Jesse’s spine. “You were always too smart for your own good.”

Jesse sees it for the backhand it is, but merely shrugs. “Someone had to be the voice of reason, it sure as shit wasn’t you.”

“Once an ingrate, always an ingrate.” The Reaper reaches out, places his hand over the top of the glass. “You abandoned me.”

“Is  _this_ how you wanna do it? Fine.” Jesse drinks his third glass, and this time he doesn’t bother pouring himself more. He still needs his wits sharp. “ _You_ turned your back on everything!” He leans forward. “On  _me_. On  _Jack_.  _On Blackwatch_. So don’t you  _dare_ tell me  _I_  abandoned  _you_.”

“I did what needed to be done. Overwatch was a scourge, a plague. I did it a favour.”

“By what? Blowing it up? Killing innocent people?” Jesse scoffs. “You went off the deep end,  _Gabriel_ , joined Talon. Talon, of all fucking things. We fought for  _years_ , fighting against them, putting them down, and then you  _join_ them? For what?  _This_?” He shoves his hand in the Reaper’s direction, looking him up and down. “I may be an ingrate, but at least I’m not pathetic.” Jesse doesn’t break eye contact with the mask, but he definitely sees the Reaper tighten his grip on the glass, and Jesse prepares himself for it to be tossed at him.  

“You wouldn’t understand,” the Reaper grounds out. “If you didn’t back then, you wouldn’t now.”

“So why are you here, then? Cause if it was just for this chat, then I’m done.” Jesse pushes his chair out and it scrapes against the floor. He doesn’t move from there, he waits for the Reaper’s next move.

“No, I didn’t come here to just talk.” Hand still on the glass, he reaches into his cloak, pulling out one of the shotguns that were gifted to him celebrating his twenty years with Overwatch and placing it on the table, hand still around the grip.

“So you came to kill me, then.” Jesse chuckles, stands and extends his arms by his side. His heart is pounding in his chest, his eyes on the Reaper but also both the glass and the shotgun he has his hands on. “I heard enough, this ends now.”

The moment the Reaper’s hand tightens around the grip of the shotgun, Jesse ducks, just in time for the shots to hit the wall behind where he was standing, and he rolls into the bedroom and slams the door behind him. He doesn’t waste time trying to jam it closed, he knows the Reaper will just smoke his way in here, so he launches at the bed, grabs Peacekeeper, quickly checks the loaded cylinder and when he flicks it into place, aiming it at the door, it’s kicked in, and the Reaper steps through, both shotguns in his hands now.

Jesse wastes no time, shooting him in the shoulder. Panic pools in his stomach when nothing but black smoke pours from the wound, when the Reaper laughs.

“Try harder,” he says, mocking, as he takes a step in the room.

For a brief moment, barely a second, Jesse hesitates. He has to remind himself that it might be Gabe under there, but it’s not the Gabe he knew. That Gabe is long dead, and this is some imposter, someone wearing his skin. And with that thought, he aims lower, where his heart should be, and shoots, but just like the first time, the Reaper is unfazed and smoke floods out of the wound.

Another laugh, and another shot, this time right between the eyes. The mask cracks and Jesse can see underneath it, can see skin behind the smoke. Jesse starts to shake now; how can he possibly survive this if he can’t kill the Reaper?

The Reaper takes a step, and Jesse takes another shot, hitting the eye socket of the mask. It cracks, above and below, and the Reaper growls, holstering one shotgun to pull the mask off, tossing it to the ground. Any long-lingering doubts Jesse had about it not being Gabe under there are put to rest, seeing the face of his old commander looking back at him.

Before Jesse can even blink, the Reaper is in front of him, hand around his throat. Jesse grasps his wrist with his prosthetic, squeezing as hard as he can, enough that it should shatter and crush bone, but nothing. He tightens his grip on Peacekeeper as he chokes for breath, as the Reaper squeezes tighter, as his vision starts to grow fuzzy around the edges.

“Let go,” the Reaper almost coos, his smile growing wider with each passing moment.

“Fuck… you…” Jesse gasps, and with his final ounce of strength, presses Peacekeeper’s muzzle under the Reaper’s chin and pulls the trigger.

Jesse drops to the floor, grasps at his neck as he coughs and sputters, tries to take in air around his crushed trachea. As he begins to stabilise, tears streaming down his face, he looks around the room, the only remnants of the Reaper is one shotgun, which after a moment disappears into the same black smoke that was pouring off him.

He doesn’t understand why that shot worked, but he sure as shit is grateful it did. His eyes dart around the room, looking for the Reaper as his breathing normalises, and the second he is confident enough that he can stand, he grabs his bag, stuffs everything in it and leaves. He drops the room key and a generous tip to cover the damages by the unattended front desk, and once he is in the confines of a taxi on his way to the airport does he contact Winston.

“Jesse. I was not expecting another check-in. Is everything all right?”

“Yeah,” he says, his voice hoarse. “You’ll never believe who paid me a visit…”


	7. “No worries, we still have time.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena and Emily.

Days off are a rarity. Between missions, reports, renovating the watchpoint to resemble something that looked homely, rather than an abandoned base, there is little free time. Days spent doing absolutely nothing are few and far between, and Lena enjoys them when they happen.

Consecutive days off are rarer still. Those times, Lena likes to take off base, which usually has to be planned and approved by Winston. She can’t shut off from Overwatch, not really, she has to have her comms on her, ready to leave at a moments notice if required. This is only in case of an emergency, and not once has she had to cut her holiday short, but Lena has learned to treasure every single moment of the short time she has in the off chance it does happen.

Especially when said short time is spent with Emily.

Lena is in London, of course. Home, in the comfort of their home, on a snowy London afternoon, cosying up in front of the heater, watching reruns of Doctor Who. This would be short-lived, though, they have plans to do some pre-Christmas shopping, go out to dinner.

And Lena has grand plans to propose to Emily tonight.

Emily’s been her rock for the past eight years. She’s put up with Lena being away from home most of the time. Putting up with visits, infrequent as they are. They talk daily, though, are constantly texting during quiet times when Lena’s on base. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, and well… it most certainly does. Lena can’t bear the thought of not marrying Emily, of not showing her just how much she loves her.

Cuddled next to Emily, Lena squeezes her a little tighter, kissing her cheek and resting her head on her shoulder. “God, I missed you,” she breathes, smelling the lingering hints of her perfume.

“You’ve said,” Emily replies as she kisses the top of Lena’s head before resting hers on top. “I missed you too.”

“We don’t nearly do this enough.”

“Says the woman who ran off to Overwatch the second Winston’s recall went through.” Lena can’t see it, but she can definitely hear the smile in her voice.

“You encouraged me!”

“You were lost without them,” Emily says softly, lifting her head and prompting Lena to look up at her. Emily smiles, sweeps Lena’s hair behind her ear. “You were like a lost puppy, and as much as you loved the time off, you hated retail—”

"So much,” Lena groans.

“And you kept in contact with Winston, which helped, and your mood improved immensely when we visited, but you needed more.”

“Vigilantism isn’t as easy as one might think,” Lena breathes, resting her head on Emily’s shoulder again. “Thank you for supporting me, I know this can’t be easy.”

“You’re happy, that’s all that matters.”

Lena looks at Emily, knows she’s grinning like an absolute madwoman but doesn’t care. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Emily whispers, leaning in and kissing Lena softly. The end credits of Doctor Who start to play, and Lena pulls away, looking at the TV.

“Aw shoot, we missed the ending.”

“We’ll catch it another time,” Emily murmurs, turning the TV off. “Ready for shopping?”

Lena looks out the window, watching the snowfall and groans. “Picked a hell of a day for it.”

“We could stay here. Order some take-away, get nice and cosy in bed…” she wiggles her eyebrows and smirks.

Lena hums, nuzzles against Emily’s shoulder and kisses it softly. “Not that I don’t love the sound of that, but we’ve got the reservation at the restaurant, and we’re already last-minute with our shopping, and tomorrow is Christmas Eve and I remember last year where I left my shopping till the literal last minute and barely got you a gift in time.”

“Oh, so you’re buying my gift today, then?” Emily says in playful condescension.

“I got your gift months ago, I’ll have you know!” Lena did get her another gift for Christmas, a violet peplum coat that she mentioned in passing she would really love. “It’s all wrapped up and under the tree!”

“I have spotted it, I’m only teasing.” She smiles, cupping Lena’s face. “You’re cute when you get all worked up.”

“Some call it passion.”

Emily hums, kissing Lena’s head and pulling the blanket off them. “Come on,” she says, standing up and offering her hand. “If you want to go shopping, let’s go shopping.”

Dressed in their winter coats, beanies, gloves and scarves, they head out. The snow has eased heaps, making it bearable and somewhat beautiful this late in the afternoon as the streetlights start to pop on. They duck into and out of shops, gifts for friends, gifts for the gang at the watchpoint, and before they know it, Jesse’s the only one who needs a gift.

“Why is buying for an American so hard here?” Emily groans, looking at her watch. “The American shop closes in half an hour and our reservation is in fifteen minutes. There’s no way we can make it across town and back in time.”

“No worries, we still have time,” Lena replies, tapping her chronal accelerator hidden under her coat. “Be back in a jiff,” she breathes, kissing Emily’s cheek. She blinks through the streets, gets to the American shop, browses quickly, finds the ugliest Christmas sweater where instead of having Christmas trees on it, it’s covered in cacti and since Jesse is a man of poor taste, he’ll absolutely love this, so she buys it, blinks back to Emily, gives her a kiss on the cheek again. “Hope I wasn’t too long?”

“Five minutes,” Emily breathes, looking at her watch. “So what’d you get?”

“The ugliest sweater you’ll ever see,” Lena says, opening the bag and showing Emily.

“Oh my God,” Emily murmurs, pulling it out. “This is perfect.”

“Right?”

“Put it back in the bag, it’s horrendous to look at,” Emily giggles, handing it back. “Too bad you’ll have to suffer with it.”

“Yep, knowing Jesse he’ll wear it every chance he gets.” Lena stuffs it back in the bag. “Okay, now we have enough time to go home, drop these off, then head out to dinner.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Emily says, leading the way.

The bags are dropped off on the way to the restaurant, and every step Lena takes towards their destination, her stomach flutters more and more. She’s not sure how she wants to propose, whether she’ll go ultra cliché and do the ring in the champers thing, or pop it in a dessert. Or maybe she should just get down on one knee at the end of their meal and ask. It’s all in the air, really.

In any case, the moment looms closer and closer with each step, and she still hasn’t made a decision. When they walk through the doors of the restaurant, her stomach is fluttering so much it’s a miracle she can even stand still.

“Reservation for Emily,” Emily says to the waiter at the front.

“Ah, yes,” he replies, “unfortunately your table is not yet ready, but please follow me to the bar and we will be with you momentarily.”

“Of course,” Emily replies, and they follow the waiter to the back of the restaurant. They take off their beanies and gloves as they take a seat, Em orders a white and Lena scotch, and when their drinks are placed on the bar, Lena holds out her glass.

“To eight years,” she breathes, smiling when Em clinks her glass against hers before taking a sip.

“Eight years,” Emily breathes, setting her glass on the bar. “Seems shorter.”

“Time flies when you’re having fun.” Lena smiles, placing a hand on Em’s knee. She looks into her eyes, and has the realisation. This is it. “It’s been quite the ride, honestly, and I’m glad I’ve spent it with you.”

“I gotta say, you did make it fun.”

“It’s a ride I don’t want to get off of, honestly.” She pauses, smiles. “Reckon it’ll be fun for the rest of our lives.”

“Rest of our lives?” Emily smirks. “That’s a long time. I’m not that fun, I assure you.”

Lena can only grin; Emily hasn’t caught onto where this is going, and the nervousness is replaced with pure excitement. “You say that, but you are. I love your dark, dry sense of humour. Your bouncy red curls. Your freckles.”

“I hate these things,” she retorts, brushing her fingers along the bridge of her nose. “It’s like a billboard screaming ‘Brit over here! I’ll burn the second the sun touches my face.’”

“And you’re funny.”

“You just have low standards.”

“Might have low standards, but you make me happy. So, so happy.”

Emily’s smile softens. “You make me happy, too.”

“So,” Lena breathes, standing up and reaching into her pocket, pulling out the ring. “I was wondering,” and she gets down on one knee, “if you’d do me the honour of marrying you.”

“Lena…” Emily murmurs, looking between the amethyst ring and her, eyes welling with tears. “Of course! Of course, of course,” she repeats, standing and offering her hand, and as Lena slips the ring on her finger, she can’t contain her tears. Emily grabs her hand the second the ring is on, pulls her up to standing, kisses her over and over before hugging her. “I love you,” she whispers.

“I love you too,” Lena whispers back.

Emily wipes her face with her hand when she pulls away, looking at the ring. “It’s beautiful.”

“Purple is your favourite colour.”

“I didn’t even know you were going to do this today,” Emily breathes, staring at the ring.

“Good!”

“I should have picked up on it, you were laying on the praises more than usual. I’m such a goose.”

“My goose,” Lena breathes, sweeping her hair behind her ear.

“Yep, guess I’m stuck with you now,” Emily says, exaggeratedly rolling her eyes.

“Could’ve said no.”

“And give up on waking up to your beautiful face every morning?”

“Stop,” Lena says, looking away, bashful.

“I don’t think so.” Emily cups Lena’s face, and Lena looks at her. “I love you, so much.”

“I love you too.”


	8. "I know you do."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reinhardt, Torbjorn and Brigitte

Christmas is always Reinhardt’s favourite time of year; especially when he gets to go home. Well, his second home, spent with the Lindholm’s. There’s good company, food and drink, snow, and he just adores Torbjörn’s children.

He loves dressing up as Tomten, handing out presents to their smiling little faces, they’re all laughter and giggles, and it really does make Reinhardt happy.

“What a day,” Torbjörn sighs, sinking onto the stool in his workshop. “Too much going on.”

“You love it,” Reinhardt replies, gathering his tools. He looks at his miniature metalwork zoo, doing a count of the animals. He’s got African animals down; lion, tiger, giraffe, zebra, buffalo, crocodile. Australian, too; kangaroo, wombat, koala. “Penguin.”

“You’re still building your zoo?” Torbjörn asks in utter disbelief.

“It is incomplete.”

“You’ve been working on that for two years now!”

“And I will be able to finish it in a month at most, now.”

Torbjörn mumbles something under his breath as he gets his smoke pipe ready, and Reinhardt is about ready to ask him to repeat that when his attention is drawn to the open door. Brigitte steps through carrying her brand new toolset, hefting it onto the table and pulling up a stool to sit. She side-eyes Torbjörn, smirks and goes about opening the bag and pulling out the tools.

“You know mamma will be angry if she catches you smoking down here.”

“You know mamma will be angry if she catches you down here instead of in bed,” Torbjörn replies without even looking up at her.

“Good point,” she says quietly, looking at Reinhardt with a small smirk on her face.

“I won’t tell her if you won’t,” Reinhardt whispers. He looks at her tools. “I see you have been good this year.”

“Yes,” Brigitte says, rolling her eyes. When she settles on Reinhardt again, she smiles. “Thank you, I know it was from you.”

“Me?” Reinhardt chuckles. “Never, it was a gift from Tomten himself! Your brothers and sisters were so excited, but saddened that I did not get to see him as I was out at the time.”

“You were dressed up,” Brigitte says, grabbing a piece of sheet metal and setting it down on the bench. “I’m not a kid anymore.”

“You’re too smart for your own good,” Reinhardt replies, looking through a container of offcut metal, finding the right piece for the penguin. Once settled on a smooth, flat oval piece, he gets to work. The room is silent, aside from Brigitte softly whispering numbers and writing them down, and the occasional puff, sizzle and slow exhale from Torbjörn.

“Is it true?”

Reinhardt looks up from the body of the penguin to Brigitte. He glances at Torbjörn, he knows what she’s asking, Torbjörn does too, and he waves his hand at Reinhardt. Torbjörn is possibly more angry about the situation than Reinhardt himself is, but what’s done is done. He looks back at Brigitte, puts the penguin down and wipes his hands on an old rag. “Overwatch?”

“About the corruption.” She pauses, looks down at her hands. “Is that you retired?”

Glancing at Torbjörn when he mutters something under his breath, he gives Brigitte his full attention. “Most of it, yes.”

“Most?”

“There are rumours of corruption in the higher ranks,” Reinhardt says, “but it is just that—rumours.”

“You and pappa are high ranked,” she says quietly.

“Not that high,” Torbjörn answers. “We are senior engineers, not management.”

That seems to ease some of her concern, and she nods as she takes in the news. “But Blackwatch?”

“What they did was wrong, selfish, and put all of us in the negative spotlight,” Torbjörn chides. “It’s been almost a year since the incident and Overwatch is still crippled thanks to  _them_.”

“That American boy I met last year, he told me he wasn’t Overwatch. Was he Blackwatch?”

“Jesse?” Reinhardt asks, and when Brigitte nods, Reinhardt nods.

“When did you meet Jesse?” Torbjörn says, slightly indignant. “I told him to stay away from you.”

“He was nice!” Brigitte replies. “He helped me with the vending machine,” she smiles, “said there was a trick where if you hit it in the right spot it will give you two chocolate bars instead of one.” Then her smile falters. “But he wasn’t wearing a uniform… So I asked.”

“And he said?” Torbjörn prompts.

“Not quite.”

“At least the lad is smart,” Torbjörn mutters.

Brigitte looks back at Reinhardt. “Did you retire because of all this?”

Reinhardt inhales and exhales slowly, picking up the penguin again. He can’t tell Brigitte that he was forced to retire, that he was too old and slow and battle-worn, that he was taking up space for younger recruits who worked faster. He looks at Torbjörn again and can see the anger in his face, from the frown to his red cheeks. “It was time,” Reinhardt says, and Torbjörn looks away. “I had done my duty, and I am not exactly a young man anymore.”

“You’re not old!” Brigitte says defiantly.

“See,” Torbjörn scoffs, “she’s still a teenager and she has more sense than our loyal strike commander.”

“I want to fight alongside you,” Brigitte says quietly.

“I know you do,” Reinhardt replies, just as quietly. “You were always my faithful squire, and we can fight here, on our schedule with our rules.” Reinhardt can see her lips twist, like she is fighting a smile, and she refuses to even look at him. “What do you say, squire?” He holds out his hand.

“Please stop,” she giggles, looking at his hand, leaning over the table and shaking it.

“What?” Reinhardt chuckles.

“This  _isn’t_ the eighteenth century.”

“We are crusaders! We fight with hammers and shields, not plasma rifles. Back to our roots!”

“I’m actually thinking about building a shield now,” Brigitte says, looking at her notepad. “Would you like to see?”

“Of course!”

Positively beaming, she grabs her notepad, stands and races around the table. Reinhardt looks at Torbjörn, and he nods, smiles, and watches as he takes a puff from his pipe.

“So,” Brigitte starts as she takes a seat next to him. “This is what it’s going to look like…”


	9. "You shouldn't have come here."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roadhog and Junkrat
> 
> Mentions of alcohol, gambling and blood, implied drug use, and minor violence.

It has been a quiet, ordinary day, and Mako is so incredibly thankful for it.

Just another day of running his bar, serving drinks, listening to patrons with problems. During the quieter times, he sat at the bar, doing sudoku, working his way through the boxes and boxes of the old puzzle books someone found and brought back after finding them in a long-abandoned opal mine.

And most of all, it has been a full day without the pest of a man who brings trouble to his doorstep.

“So this is where you like to hang out?”

Mako closes his eyes. He spoke too soon.

“I like it! Can’t believe I haven’t been here before. I usually like to go to Big Claw when I want to wind down, but I don’t like his brew.” Junkrat collapses onto a seat and taps his hands on the bar. “So tell me, you got VB?”

Roadhog shakes his head.

“Four-X?”

“No.”

“Fosters? I’ll even take that piss-water.”

“No.”

“C’mon, you gotta have something from before the apocalypse. Don’t tell me you’re exclusively homebrew like everyone else!”

Mako just looks at Junkrat, at his grinning, eager face, before giving in, turning, opening the fridge and grabbing out his only non-homebrew and placing it on the bar.

“Coopers?” Junkrat says, completely sceptical as he analyses the label before twisting off the cap and giving it a sniff. “It’ll do, I guess.”

“Fifty credits.”

“Fifty?! Couldn’t’ve said that before I opened it?”

Mako just stares at Junkrat, hoping he gets the hint that he is indeed completely serious. Right now, though, he is so glad he needs to wear his mask because he’s grinning from ear to ear as he normally charges thirty credits for the beer.

“Fine,” Junkrat groans, reaching into his pocket, flicking a credit chip at Mako. He catches it, sees it’s a fifty credit chip and places it in the till as Junkrat takes a cautious sip. “Never had Coopers before. I like it!”

“Haven’t had Coopers, yet had Four-X.”

“Been up and down the East Coast, but beer wasn’t really my thing before all this,” he says waving his arm and gesturing to the bar. “Wasn’t much of a drinker at all, actually.”

Mako grunts; he has been around Junkrat enough to know that he is indeed quite the heavier drinker. But most of everyone is these days, when sixty percent of the businesses surviving in this post-apocalyptic world are bars. Booze, scrapyard fights and gambling are what make up most of Junkertown’s economy.

With a heavy sigh, Mako grabs his rag and wipes down the bar. His attention flits between Junkrat and the broadcast of the scrapyard fight, undefeated champion Wrecking Ball is demolishing another contender. There were high hopes for the new guy, so much so that the odds of him winning were 2:1.

“Wrecking Ball wins another!” Junkrat exclaims, pumping his fist into the air. “Anyone who bet against him is a bloody moron, wouldn’t you say, Roadhog?”

Mako hums, content that the bar is clean enough, that no one will come in here for another hour at least, given there is one more match after this. He grabs his sudoku book, sitting at the bar.

“Whaddya doin’?” Junkrat asks, and Mako recoils from Junkrat’s closeness. He watches Junkrat’s face morph somewhere between glee and confusion. “What the hell even is this?”

“Sudoku.”

“Su-what? Looks boring.”

Mako rolls his eyes. “Keeps my brain sharp.”

“Okay,” Junkrat laughs, “you do your number Su-whatchamacallit, I’ll stick to explosives. Say!” Junkrat yells obnoxiously, “Why don’t we have another night on the town! We got away with small stuff, how’s about we push our luck further?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No,” Mako says as a finality. He looks down at his puzzle, attempts to solve it. “It’s lucky we didn’t get caught stealing and blowing up the shack. I’m not about to push that luck.”

“You’re no fun.”

“You shouldn’t have come here.”

“Then where would I go?”

“Big Claw likes you.”

“Big Claw is a dimwit,” Junkrat groans. “He asked to see one of my concussion mines, bloody holds it up to his face, shakes it, then presses the damn trigger. He’s lucky the thing wasn’t armed otherwise he’d be six-feet-under.”

“It is a miracle the human race has survived this long,” Mako muses.

“I know, right?” Junkrat sighs, falling into the seat next to Mako, knocking shoulders. “I swear, you and I are the only two smart ones here—”

“Oi! There you are!”

Mako looks up, sees three people standing in the door to his bar, armed with chains, a crowbar and a cricket bat. They’re angry, drunk, possibly high, too, and have their sights set on Junkrat.

“Evening fellas,” Junkrat says as he stands up, and Mako can hear the quiver of fear in his voice. “I ah… Whatever’s happened, it wasn’t me, I swear. I’ve been here for the last half an hour, right, Roadhog?”

“It’s true,” Mako grunts. He might be annoyed by Junkrat, but he doesn’t want to see the guy hurt. Blood is so hard to scrub away.

“Oh? So it wasn’t you who got into the sheep pen, let them loose, spray painted that damn smiley face tag of yours along with ‘Junkrat was here’?”

“Oh…” Junkrat says, and Mako can only shake his head. He takes it back, these guys can take him. “Well… that coulda been anyone,” he chuckles, before turning his head towards Mako while keeping his eyes on the group. “I’m being framed, I swear!”

“Max?” The one with the chain prompts.

Cricket bat steps forward. “Saw him with my own two eyes an hour ago. In the pen, letting them loose, tagging, leaving.”

“That’s your only evidence? Your lackey’s word?” Junkrat scoffs. “You don’t have proof it was me!”

“Don’t need proof,” Max replies. “You did it and we’re getting our revenge.”

Mako gives them his full attention now because what Junkrat is saying is surprisingly true. They don’t have hard evidence, and it could have been anyone. Not likely, but could have been. His stomach drops, though when he spots The Baron, younger brother to the Queen holding the crowbar. Now it doesn’t matter if Junkrat did it or not, he’s stuffed.

And Mako realises he probably is too. Guilty by association.

Mako watches the trio advance, and at the last second as the cricket bat is lifted over the guy’s head and ready to strike Junkrat, he grabs Junkrat by the shoulder, pulls him away, and the bat strikes the bar, splintering the bat and cracking the bar.

Well. No one damages Mako Rutledge’s property and gets away with it. He stands, takes a step forward and looms over the trio, and The Baron is the first to cave, running off. The other two who aren’t as smart stick around, chains and the remains of the cricket bat are raised, and in one smooth movement Mako grabs the bat, snatches it from the man’s hand and turns it on him. Chains, who doesn’t look like he has two brain cells to rub together, flings them at Mako and he catches them, swallows down the groan from them cracking against his knuckles, and pulls the man in close, enough to headbutt him. He goes crashing to the ground, unconscious, and cricket bat runs for it. Mako drops the weapons, flexes his fingers and is thankful his hand isn’t broken.

“That was friggin amazing!” Junkrat beams, looking from chains to Mako, grinning. “Got my own bodyguard!”

“I’m not your bodyguard,” Mako grunts, turning his attention to the bar. The crack thankfully appears shallow, something that a quick sand and revarnish should fix. The bar was in dire need of a refurbish anyway, so he guesses he can thank those morons for kicking his ass into gear.

“Them!”

Mako sighs, looking up and seeing The Baron and the Queensguard at his door. This isn’t good. He doesn’t have much to think about after that, he and Junkrat are manhandled, escorted right out of Junkertown, shoved to the ground and the doors closed on them.

Not good at all.

“Well, that’s a fine how-do-you-do…”


	10. "You think this troubles me?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hanzo Shimada
> 
> Mentions of blood and injuries, implied suicide attempt, mentions of alcohol abuse.

_Nock. Draw. Loose._

_Nock. Draw. Loose._

There was a level of comfort Hanzo felt whenever he took time out if his day to train with his bow. A familiarity, pulling him down and enveloping him like a heavy blanket on a snowy day, shielding him from the real world and its problems.

_Nock. Draw. Loose._

Three simple steps, repeated over and over, timed to his breathing.

_Nock. Draw. Loose._

Then there is the satisfying  _thunk_ when the arrow embeds into the target, the silence that follows.

_Nock. Draw. Loose._

Predictable.

It is a shame, however, that he has been unable to land a bullseye the entire night.

Three days and counting. That is how long he has gone without proper sleep. Three days since his world came crashing down. Since he cut his hair, drunk and angry and ashamed, too cowardly to inflict the mortal wounds to himself but needed to do  _something_ to channel that energy, and his hair was the victim.

Three days since Genji died.

He put up an infallible front in the presence of the elders. He had no choice, it was either that, show no weakness, no remorse for betraying his brother, or show emotion, show them that he is weak, that he is not fit to run the clan.

And after everything he has been through, he cannot show weakness. Not now.

Behind closed doors, though, he saw himself for the monster he truly was. The monster who killed his brother. Who did it without thought, without hesitation. He told himself he was doing it for the sake of the clan’s survival as he washed the sticky mix of both his blood and Genji’s off his hands, as he scrubbed it off his face and neck in the shower, as he screamed in the mirror, cutting his hair instead of his skin, as he drank himself to sleep.

As he went through the motions of being clan leader the following day, pretending like nothing happened.  

But it did happen, and for every painstaking second that passes, he can feel the guilt in his chest, its claws digging into his heart, squeezing tighter and tighter, making it almost impossible to breathe.

If he closes his eyes, he can smell the blood, taste it on his tongue. Hear Genji’s screams, right to the moment his voice dies in his throat. See his lifeless eyes, his still body. He can hear his own breaths, quick and shallow, feel his heart pounding in his chest, his pulse throbbing in the aftermath.

And with each and every single passing moment, as much as he tried putting up a wall to contain that guilt, it is not strong enough and it is taking less and less for those thoughts to slip through.

“Your form is off.”

Hanzo closes his eyes, takes a steadying breath, and opens them again as he plucks another arrow, knocks it, draws and looses. It hits the target close to the bullseye, just like the others, but not  _the_ bullseye.

“You are distracted.”

Hanzo lowers his bow, turns and faces Shiro-san. She was perhaps the only elder who voiced concern about doing Genji any harm, but ultimately was overruled by the rest of them. The only one who could have put a stop to the entire plan, but she stayed quiet; keeping her seat on the council was obviously more important than the life of his brother.

As much as she was against the plan, she has shown her allegiance. Hanzo knows that whatever he tells her, she will relay back to the council. He can trust no one, not any more. He killed the only person he trusted with his deepest, darkest secrets.

“I have not slept,” Hanzo replies, walking to his towel and water bottle, resting his bow against the wall as he takes a drink. “Work has been busy, I have put in much overtime.”

“You need to look after yourself, Hanzo,” she says softly. “You need to allow yourself to grieve, to heal. We can see the emotional toll Genji’s passing is having on you.”

 _Passing_. They are pretending that Genji found death through accidental means rather than intentional. Genji didn’t ‘pass’, he was murdered. Though, Hanzo supposes that being so removed from the events that transpired, they would not see it in the same light as Hanzo does. It may have been their motives, but it was not done by their hands, after all.

Hanzo glances at his hand, sees the blood from three night’s prior on it, watches the subtle tremor before balling it into a fist and putting on the mask of strong, defiant clan leader once more. “You think this troubles me?” he scoffs. “He was reckless, putting himself before the needs of the clan, and I did what needed to be done.” Hanzo practically feels nauseous, hearing those words fall from his mouth. They were the exact words the elders told him. At the very least, if they had any doubts,  _that_ should put them to rest. “I have put in extra hours into the businesses, seen personally to balancing the books. That is all that is bothering me at this moment.”

“Might I suggest,” she starts, and she looks away. Hanzo does his best to contain his anger at those words, he is more than done listening to their suggestions. “If you have another sleepless night, to consult with Sensei Kurihara in the morning. I am sure he can prescribe something to help with your sleep.”

Hanzo narrows his eyes, stares Shiro-san down, and ultimately gives a single, curt nod, just to get her off his back. The last thing he needs now is a doctor buzzing around, telling him he is suffering the early effects of alcohol poisoning or some other alcohol-related illness considering he feels like he has been some level of inebriated for three days and counting, and he has no plans to stop now. “Perhaps I will meditate,” he says, picking up his towel and draping it over his shoulder. “Drink some tea, ensure I have an early night to regain my focus.”

“For the best,” Shiro-san says, smiling. “We must show strength during these tough times.”

 _Strength_. Yes, because the last thing the clan needs is to have a weak leader. Hanzo did as he was told. Saw harm done to his flesh and blood, his only brother. He followed their orders and yet they still see him as weak. There will be no end to this, no end to the nightmares, the thoughts, the doubts.

The only way there will be an end is if he leaves it all behind.

When he has the thought, it is almost like the fog clouding his mind immediately lifts. No more whispers, twisting and poisoning his mind with falsehoods. No longer their puppet.

Freedom.

It takes all his strength to not burst out in a grin, to show her his sudden mood change. He nods, though, agreeing that indeed, the clan must stay strong during this tough time. They are about to lose their second leader in four months, after all.

“Thank you for your concern,” Hanzo says. “I have much to think about.”

“Of course. You can always talk to me, Hanzo, whenever you need to. We are all here for you, you do not have to face these challenges alone,” she says, smiling. “Good night.”

“Good night, Shiro-san,” Hanzo replies, giving his own smile so she turns and leaves, and the moment her back is turned, he grits his teeth, jaw clenching.

_You do not need to face these challenges alone._

Where were they when he had his sword? When he sliced through Genji. When he watched him take his final breath. As far away as humanly possible, leaving him alone.

That statement only solidifies his decision to leave them all behind.

Hanzo collects his arrows, places them and his bow in the equipment room and packs them up, ready to grab and go when he makes his move. He showers, packs a bag containing the bare necessities, takes a moment to meditate and brew some tea, and writes an email to let them know he is formally stepping down as leader of the clan effective immediately while he waits for the castle to go to sleep. The last thing he does is transfer his money into a personal account no one except for him knows about. He transfers that of the businesses too, every single Yen made up until this moment.

Now they will see who is weak.

For the first time in three days, he feels clarity in his mind, crystal clear with his decision. He waits until the early hours of the morning, under the cover of darkness to make his move, keeping to the shadows, using the route he and Genji used to use when they would sneak out and go clubbing. He detours only for his bow, and the second he is outside the castle walls, he runs. It will not take them long to figure out what has happened, the email he wrote will be automatically sent at six a.m., giving him only four hours headstart.

And as he runs, the only thing he can think is they will need all the luck in the world to find him.


	11. "But I will never forget!"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mei and Winston
> 
> PTSD

Staring into the vast, endless expanse of space is always relaxing for Mei.

It’s something that is almost impossible to do back home, either too cloudy in Xi'an or too smoggy in Beijing. Nothing will beat Antarctica, though. With no light pollution, on a moonless night she could see the Milky Way with the naked eye, and see it in incredible detail through the telescope.

Gibraltar, though, isn’t bad. On this side of the cliffs with as little light there is, she can see thousands of stars, twinkling in the midnight sky. It has the added advantage of being warm, so she can enjoy it without having to look through a window. She comes out here whenever she can, when the sky is clear and just sits with a thermos of tea, stares into the night with the sound of the ocean below, nocturnal birds above, trying to identify the constellations from memory.

She startles when she hears a creak from behind her, panic turning to relief when she sees Winston’s silhouette in the distance.

“I’m sorry, Mei, I didn’t realise you were out here.”

“It’s fine,” she says. “Would you like to join me?”

Winston hesitates for a moment, but eventually nods his head. “Sure,” he says, walking over and sitting next to her. “It’s a beautiful night,” he says after a moment.

Mei nods, taking a sip of tea from her cup. “It will be clear for the next few nights,” she breathes. “I don’t suppose we have a telescope in storage?”

“Not a working one,” Winston sighs. He looks at Mei and she can see the barest hint of a smirk. “I’m sure I can reallocate some funds. It has been too long since I’ve seen the stars.”

“I would like that,” she says, twisting off the lid of her thermos and offering it to Winston. “Tea? It’s jasmine.”

“Thank you.”

Mei pours him the tea. “I’m surprised I’m not the only one up this late.”

“You’re the third person I’ve bumped into tonight,” Winston says sheepishly, taking the cup. “Not many of us know how to keep a good sleep schedule, it seems.”

“Insomnia,” Mei says quietly, looking at the stars. “I’ve slept for nine years straight, it seems my body is done sleeping,” she chuckles.

“Seems to be a common problem here,” Winston replies, taking a sip. “During times when I know I’ve spent hours, if not days, working on something without taking a break, I make myself take a step back. My first port of call is out here to clear my mind to help me settle down enough for sleep.”

“How long has it been for you?” Mei asks.

“Awake? Close to twenty-four hours.” He looks at Mei. “And yourself?”

Mei looks at her watch, huffs a little laugh. “Approaching thirty.”

“Oh,” Winston chuckles, “got me beat there.”

Smiling, Mei takes another sip of her tea and looks back out to the stars. They sit in a companionable silence for a long time, and Mei feels a little more comfortable with Winston being here. Not that she needed anyone to sit with her, but there is a part of her that feels just that little bit better knowing that she isn’t alone. “I’m glad you came out here,” she whispers, and she closes her eyes when she starts to feel that telltale prickling of tears.

It must have come out a lot more desperate than she intended, because Winston wraps an arm around her. “We should make it a regular event,” he says, voice quiet. “We can bring out a picnic rug, maybe some snacks. Set up the telescope, too.”

Mei chuckles, takes off her glasses to wipe her eyes. “I would like that,” she says. “We used to have viewing parties at the ecopoint. When it was clear enough, at least. The times we were treated to Aurora Australis was just magical. We would have discussions about the likelihood of life on other worlds, space travel, wormholes, parallel universes…” She looks up at the stars and smiles. “I like to think that there is a universe out there, where they all woke up from stasis. Or another where they didn’t miss the resupply window.”

“It’s not  _im_ possible.”

“Sometimes it’s the only thing that gets me through the night,” she whispers, closing her eyes and resting her head on Winston’s shoulder. She waits for the tide of emotion to pass, for the nausea and survivor’s guilt to subside, to take the time to tell herself that what happened  _happened_ , that she is a survivor, that she overcame the greatest odds and made it to McMurdo Station on foot. Smiling as she pulls her head up, she takes her glasses off completely, folding them and setting them down beside her before wiping her eyes and nose on her sleeve. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.

“Don’t apologise,” Winston replies. “You have been through an incredible challenge and come out the other side stronger. You are an amazing person, a fighter, a survivor.”

Mei chuckles, looks at the sky, even though she can’t make out any stars. “Sometimes I feel guilty whenever I think ill of one of them. I spent so long down there with them, with nowhere to go, sometimes they got on my nerves.”

“That’s only natural.”

“But I will never forget!” she says defiantly, looking at Winston. “I’ll never forget those little moments, the discussions, the viewings, the laughter and jokes.” She pauses, looks down at her hands. “What Opara looked like when I woke up…” she adds, barely a whisper. “But I can see their faces, hear their voices so clearly in my mind, I’ll never forget them.”

Winston doesn’t say anything, and he doesn’t need to, just having someone to speak to who isn’t a counsellor is enough. They sit in yet another comfortable silence for a long time, right until Mei lets out an eye-watering yawn.

“I think I have hit the wall,” she says rubbing her eyes.

“Me too,” Winston says, separating from her. “Mind if I walk you to your quarters?”

“Of course not,” Mei answers, taking the lid back to her thermos and screwing it back on, before picking up her mug and glasses, sliding them on and standing up. They head inside, walk the dimly lit corridors of the base, and Mei is fully aware of how tired she actually is by the fact that her feet are dragging on the ground. When they stop in front of her quarters, Mei looks up at Winston and smiles. “Thank you for sitting with me. And thank you for listening.”

“Any time, Mei,” Winston says quietly. “Whenever you want to talk, about anything, you just find me.”

“I will.” She inputs the code for the door and it slides open, and when she glances at her bed, she can feel it almost pulling her in. “Good night, Winston.”

“Good night, Mei.”


	12. "Who could do this?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jesse, Lena, Zenyatta, Doomfist, Hanzo, Winston and Angela.
> 
> tw: mentions of injuries and death, implied McHanzo

There isn’t much that Jesse’s seen that’s bothered him. From his time in Deadlock to Blackwatch, he’s seen injuries, death from his hand and by someone else’s. The time he lost his arm ranks pretty high, because seeing the remnants of your arm on the ground is traumatic, to say the least.

And then there’s this.

Bodies litter the ground. Human and omnic alike, the attack was indiscriminate, but most definitely deliberate. A trio of bombs in this human-omnic safe zone in London went off, and initial reports linked it to a revived Null Sector, looking to recreate the Kings Row uprising to coincide with the ten year anniversary. There was no real proof other than the group had mentioned it once in a dossier, but there was something about it that wasn’t quite right. It was too dirty, there was no follow up from the group. Surely if they wanted to start another uprising they’d be in the streets, marching to Downing Street or something.

It set Jesse on edge, and he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

“Em’s okay,” Lena breathes as she approaches, hand over her heart. “Was at home at the time. I hate that she works so close to here, though.”

“She got some time off coming up?”

“Yeah, the shop’s gonna be closed for the next week at least, in memory…” Lena trails off, scans the area and Jesse sees her go paler than she already is.

“Should ask Winston if she could stay for the week,” Jesse says as he wraps an arm around her shoulders. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind, and honestly it’ll be a load off my mind knowin’ she’s safe.”

“Yeah,” Lena replies, her voice barely a whisper. She looks down, holds her left hand out as she presumably looks at her wedding band and nods. “Yeah, that’s not a bad idea.” She then glances to her right and Jesse follows her gaze, seeing Zenyatta approaching. “Hey, Zen, how are you doing?”

“A triage tent has been set up for the injured,” Zenyatta responds. “Dr. Ziegler and I are doing the best we can while ambulances try to make their way into the area.” He stops beside Lena and looks at the covered bodies. “Is this everyone?”

“Not sure,” Jesse replies. “Can’t get into the stores, too badly damaged and I don’t want to send anyone in there without the professionals.” He glances at Zenyatta. “There’s no sound coming from there, though, so I would say we got all the injured.”

“Very well,” Zenyatta responds. “I will check in with Winston and Genji, from what I am hearing this was not Null Sector.”

“Didn’t think so,” Jesse says. “Got any other leads?”

“None yet.”

“A’ight,” Jesse breathes, nodding. “Check in with Winston, I’ll check in with Hanzo’s team, see where those guys are at. Meet in fifteen?”

“Until then,” Zenyatta responds, turning away.

Jesse looks down at Lena, gives her a little shake. “You all right?”

“I can’t believe, ten years later, we’re here again,” she answers, voice barely a whisper. “If not Null Sector, then who? Who could do this?”

Jesse shakes his head and takes a breath. “Don’—”

“The fact that you have to ask yourself that is a testament to Overwatch’s limited resources.”

Spinning around, Jesse’s hand flies to Peacekeeper sitting in her holster as his eyes settle on the hooded figure. What he can see though, is that damned gauntlet. “Talon,” Jesse spits. “Should’ve figured it was you.”

“But why?!” Lena cries, taking a step towards Doomfist. “Haven’t you done enough here?!”

“We have barely scratched the surface of what we have planned,” Doomfist boasts, lowering his hood. “But I implore you, find proof it was us.”

“You make it sound like a challenge,” Jesse says, stalling for time. He’s hoping someone from one of the other teams will come by, try to check in,  _anything_ which can alert them to Doomfist being here. And if Doomfist’s here, odds are the rest of them are, too. That very thought sets him on edge. “Unless,” Jesse says, bringing a hand up to his chin, rubbing it in thought in an attempt to not show his true fear, “you want us to waste our time looking for evidence which isn’t there, ‘cause you’re riding the coattails of someone else.”

“Look, don’t look,” Doomfist says, not taking Jesse’s bait. “Doesn’t matter in the end. We’ve accomplished what we want here.”

“And that is?” Jesse asks. “Creating more human-omnic tension? Throwing the world into conflict? Please, it’s a failed method scaling back hundreds of years. It does nothing but unites the majority.”

“But what of the minority?” Doomfist counters. “We will succeed where others have failed. This is only the beginning, I assure you.”

“Uh-huh.” Jesse tightens his grip on Peacekeeper. “And what’s stoppin’ me from putting a bullet between your eyes, right here, right now?”

“I was warned that you were the violent one, Mr. McCree,” Doomfist chuckles. “ _She_  will be very pleased to know she was right.”

It takes all of Jesse’s willpower not to take that bait. “That don’t answer my question,” he says as he levels Peacekeeper at Doomfist.

“Do you think I would physically come here?” Doomfist scoffs. “You’re worse off than I’d originally thought. You might have some strength, brute force, but the intelligence is clearly lacking.”

“I’ve heard enough!” Lena growls, aiming her pistols at him. “Taunt all you want, it won’t change the fact that we’ll be breathing down your necks!”

Doomfist merely chuckles, waves his hand, then disappears into hundreds of purple hexagons.

“Hologram,” Jesse grunts.

“I fucking hate it when they do that,” Lena admonishes. She sighs, holsters her pistols. “I’m going to check in with Angela and Zen, see if I can catch Winston on his call. I think it might be worth checking in with Hanzo’s team, letting them know what’s happened.”

“Good idea,” Jesse breathes, plucking his comm from his pocket. He waits for Lena to walk away before opening a channel to Hanzo, chewing on his lip as he waits for him to answer.

“ _Hanzo here._ ” There is a pause, and Jesse can hear the smirk on his voice as he says, “ _And you are five minutes late for our scheduled meeting time._ ”

“Yeah, sorry about that, got tied up. You see anything out of the ordinary on your end?”

“ _Nothing. Damage here is minimal, and the bridge is almost complete. Ambulances should be able to cross the river in approximately ten minutes._ ”

“That’s great news, sweetheart.”

“ _What is wrong._ ”

“Just had a visit from Doomfist—”

“ _Did you apprehend him?_ ”

“Would’ve loved to, but he wasn’t physically here. Was a hologram. Went on about how this was Talon, how they’ve barely ‘scratched the surface’ of their plan,” Jesse scoffs, kicks at a piece of debris on the ground, watching it bounce into a damaged car.

“ _Are you okay?_ ”

“Yeah,” Jesse breathes. “Counting down the minutes till I’m seein’ your smiling face.”

“ _Stop._ ”

Jesse smirks; he can practically see Hanzo’s eye roll, and can definitely hear the smirk on his voice. “Never.”

“ _You should probably check in with Winston,_ ” Hanzo says, bringing him back to reality. Mission first, flirting later.

“Yeah,” Jesse replies, scuffing his foot on the ground. “You stay safe out there.”

“ _You too. Hanzo out._ ”

Jesse stares at the carnage in front of him one final time before heading towards Angie’s tent. He repeats Doomfist’s words in his mind, and while a part of him wants to brush it off as Talon being grandiose, he can’t shake the feeling that this is the start of something bigger.

When he reaches the tent, Angie, Zen and Lena are around a tablet set up, Winston projecting back.

“Jesse,” Winston says as Jesse enters the frame. “Lena told me you checked in with Hanzo’s team.”

“Yep. Nothing on their end. He said the bridge should be up and running in ten, then we can start getting the injured out of here.”

“Good news. Lena also filled me in on your discussion with Doomfist. What are your thoughts?”

“I definitely believe him when he says they’ve got bigger plans,” Jesse breathes. “As for right now, I think they’ve done all they’ve planned. I don’t imagine us being in any real danger today, not if Doomfist himself isn’t here.”

“You’re probably right,” Winston murmurs, looking away for a moment before looking back. “Keep an eye on things there, report in if anything else happens. But I believe you are correct in your assessment Jesse, that they have done what they wanted to do here.”

“No problems, boss,” Jesse breathes. “See you in a few.”

“Winston out.”

The screen goes blank, and Athena’s logo displays on the front. “Angie?”

“Everyone here is stabilised and ready for transport,” she responds.

“Good,” Jesse breathes. “Zen?”

“The same for the injured omnics.”

“Good. Let’s get these folks outta here, help authorities in any way we can.” He exhales noisily, looks at Lena. “Lena, you and me will greet the ambulances that make it across the bridge, tell ‘em where to go.”

“Got it.”

“A’ight, we got a good few hours of work ahead of us. Let’s go, people.”


	13. "Try harder, next time."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hanzo, Genji and Jesse
> 
> (Part 1 of the McHanzo story)

“And this is the training range.”

Hanzo looks around in approval. Training dummies are set up at various distances, there mobile ones, and even ones that shoot back. “I can come here at any time?”

“Most times,” Genji answers. “Given how few of us there are at the moment it’s relatively empty, but sometimes someone might book the space. If there’s no name on the door, though, it’s a free for all.”

“How long are sessions booked for?”

“Two hours maximum, you can book a section only, leaving the rest of the range open to anyone else, or you can book the entire space. Up to you.”

Hanzo nods, and he cannot contain his grin. The base so far had been what he expected for a military base; small, sterile quarters, shared living and eating spaces, large medical facility—much larger than the apparent seven so far including Hanzo who have answered the recall—but the training range is much better than he expected.

He approaches a stationary training dummy and analyses its exterior. While it is old, it does not appear damaged. “Who repairs them?”

“They do,” Genji replies, standing beside him. “They’re self-repairing, for the most part. Enough for minor damage. They do require maintenance, and any mechanical fault requires intervention. Torbjörn used to handle that, I think he’ll pick it back up again if Reinhardt can convince him to rejoin.”

Hanzo merely nods, those are names of people he has not met. Genji gave him a brief rundown of those who have answered the recall, but so far he has only met Winston, who was quite professional despite the apprehension that bled through the welcome, and McCree, who did not say much other than a quick ‘hey’. Apparently, something happened on the mission he was on, as Winston was quick to finish up with him and talk with McCree.

After burying the thought of pressing Genji for information again, he looks back at the dummy. “Will I be able to use my bow?”

“I don’t see why not,” Genji says, glancing at the dummy. “Although we haven’t had anyone use a bow before. Usually guns.” He turns to look at Hanzo. “Would that be okay for the moment? I’d hate for the bots to be sitting in a heaped pile because it turns out they can’t take arrows.”

Hanzo looks at the dummy and nods. “I suppose,” he mutters. “What do you do?”

“I have a training sword, otherwise my shuriken don’t embed far enough to do damage to the hardware.”

Humming, Hanzo looks around at all of the available space. “Perhaps it is something I can look into. The base has access to hardlight technologies?”

“Yep. You thinking of making your own targets?”

“If I don’t have to rely on mechanical parts, that would be easier. The arrows will just clatter to the ground once I am done.”

“We could see if we can make training arrows, too, I suppose. I guess the last thing you would want is your arrows being damaged by the bots, too.”

“A good point.”

Genji takes a step forward, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Things to keep your mind occupied.”

Hanzo nods, and takes a breath when Genji’s hand slips away. “Would you be— ” he starts, saying those words without thinking and only stopping because he realised he was speaking.

“Would I be..?” Genji prompts, smiling wide, and Hanzo suspects he already has figured out where the rest of the statement is going. He promised himself that he would not shut Genji out any longer than he has.

“Would you be interested in helping?” Hanzo says quietly, afraid that the base’s only occupants would consider him weak for uttering the words. Then, he rolls his eyes when he can clearly see the tears forming in Genji’s.

“Sorry,” Genji says, turning around. “I just… wasn’t expecting this so soon, you know?”

Hanzo closes his eyes, takes a step forward and places a hand on Genji’s shoulder. “I had thought you dead for ten years,” he murmurs, “I have to make up that time.”

“I would love to help,” Genji whispers, placing his flesh and blood hand on top of Hanzo’s.

It is only a moment Hanzo has to enjoy this before his attention is immediately drawn to the sound of the door behind him opening. He jerks his hand away as he takes a step away from Genji.

“Aw, hell,” McCree mutters. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude. Didn’t know you were in here.”

“It’s fine,” Genji says, turning back around. “We’ve just finished the tour anyway, the range is yours.”

“You don’t have to leave. I’m just gonna blow off some steam,” he says, hand on the gun in his holster, “need something to shoot at, y’know?”

Genji looks at Hanzo, and Hanzo smirks, just a little. “I would not mind seeing the training bots in action. If that is okay with you, Mr. McCree,” he adds, turning his attention to McCree.

“Please, Jesse is fine. Mr. McCree was my old man and I’m sure Genji’ll tell you, I’m as far from an actual gentleman as you can get.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Genji says quickly. “You offer your seat on hypertrains to people who need it, you help little old ladies cross the road, and you’re usually the first responder in any crisis—”

“Stop, you’re makin’ me blush,” McCree says, even though he practically preens in response to those words. “But please, Jesse.”

“Okay… Jesse,” Hanzo replies.

“Do you have a preferred name?”

“Hanzo is fine.”

“Hanzo,” Jesse says, taking a step forward and extending his hand. “Nice to officially meet you.”

Bowing his head, Hanzo takes McCree’s hand. “A pleasure.”

“Sorry about earlier, too. Mission was rough and had to debrief with Winston.” A subtle frown crosses his face as he looks at Genji, and Hanzo follows his gaze, Genji’s got an equal frown on his face. “Later,” McCree mutters. “Now,” he says with a smile, taking back his hand as he takes his gun from his holster, spins it around for show, “I’ll show you how the bots work.”

Following behind McCree, he enters a storeroom, empties the cylinder of the gun of his ammunition and replaces it with rounds which are a lot more higher tech. “Training bullets,” McCree says. “Gives you the same kick and feel on your gun with about a quarter of the damage. Keeps the bots up longer.”

“Makes sense,” Hanzo says, watching as he picks up two boxes of the ammunition.

“I didn’t realise you had your ammo already made,” Genji says.

“Winston found the specs in the database and the second I told him I was coming back, he whipped up a batch or ten. Got enough to see me through the rest of the year, honestly.” He picks up three headsets, handing them over before leaving the storeroom and heading back to the training range, setting up in front of the mobile dummies.

Hanzo watches Genji as he activates the headset, he repeats it before slipping it on.

“And what’s your weapon of choice, Hanzo?” Jesse asks, his voice crackles through the comms.

“A bow.”

Jesse turns around, smiling wide. “A bow? Really now?”

Hanzo is a little taken aback, Genji had said that he talked with his friends prior to him seeking him out, so he would have assumed he told them that he is a bowman by trade. “Yes,” he says, a little cautious, “but I am proficient in the use of a range of guns.”

“Now that’s what I like to hear,” Jesse says. “Don’t need to teach you. Gotta train you to make sure you conform to Overwatch standards, but that’s something for another day.” Jesse glances at his gun, then back at Hanzo. “Actually, you feelin’ up to some shooting now? I’d love to see your skills.”

“If it is of no trouble,” Hanzo replies, grinning.

“None at all. C’mon, let’s get you a standard 9mm, most of the team have one of these on them.”

It’s no time before Hanzo has the gun in his hands, and he is aiming it at the mobile training dummies. He glances at Jesse first, then Genji, who nods eagerly in response before turning his attention to the dummy and firing, hitting it square in the chest.

“Not bad, not bad,” Jesse says, and he fires, landing a headshot.

“You are quite skilled.”

“I would hope so,” Jesse chuckles. “Don’t carry any other weapons on me, ‘cept for a couple of knives.” He looks at his gun. “This is my baby.”

Hanzo cannot help but smile. “I know the sentiment. I am quite fond of my bow.”

“I’d love to see your skills one day.”

“Genji and I are going to see if I can design targets using hardlight. So perhaps soon I can show you.”

“I’d like that,” Jesse smiles. “But in the meantime,” he turns his attention back to the dummies, following it before taking two shots, not only hitting the one he was tracking, but the one behind it, getting perfect headshots, “I’d like to see just how good you are.”

Hanzo grins, tracking three dummies and memorising their movements before landing perfect headshots. His grin widens when he hears Jesse scoff.

“Seems you were holdin’ out on me,” Jesse says, looking at Hanzo before looking at the dummies. “A’ight, a’ight, tell you what. How about we have a little competition?”

“Yes,” Hanzo says without thought, because he is never one to turn down a challenge.

“We’ll let the bots go on a random program, hardest one we’ve got. First to not only empty their clip but land six perfect headshots wins. Whaddya say?”

Hanzo looks at Jesse’s extended hand and smirks. “May the best man win,” he says, shaking his hand.

“Genj,” Jesse calls over his shoulder.

“Yo.”

“Mediate this for us, would ya?”

“Of course.”

Jesse winks as he pulls his hand away. “Athena? Random please.” When the bots’ trajectories increases in speed and movements turn erratic, Hanzo realises that he has possibly bitten off more than he can chew. It is something he could do easily with his bow, but with a gun, landing headshots could prove challenging. He doesn’t show any of this to Jesse, though, he merely raises an eyebrow, looking back at him.

“Ready when you are,” Hanzo says.

“All right,” Genji says, standing between them. “Six rounds, six perfect headshots. Are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” Jesse replies as Hanzo nods.

“Okay… three.”

Hanzo turns his attention to the dummies.

“Two.”

He tracks one, then another.

“One.

And now a third.

“Shoot!”

Hanzo aims and shoots the first in his field of view, the one behind, the one next to that one, and when he moves onto his fourth, he can see Jesse blowing the smoke off his gun on the corner of his eye, and he focuses, trying to land headshots on the remaining but only hitting one.

“Looks like Jesse is the winner,” Genji declares, and a small part of Hanzo is annoyed that he lost, but he is surprisingly impressed with the display.

“Was there ever any doubt?” Jesse says, holding out his hand again. “Sorry ‘bout that, Hanzo.”

“If I had my bow,” Hanzo starts, shaking Jesse’s hand, “then there would have been no contest.”

“That right?”

“I’m more skilled with it than with my gun.”

“‘Course you are,” Jesse chuckles.

Hanzo narrows his eyes, just for a moment. “Are you doubting my skills?”

“Nup,” Jesse says, shaking his head. “We know how skilled you are.” He shrugs. “You’re pretty good with a gun, but could be better, I reckon.”

Hanzo grins. “A rematch, then.”

“Another time,” Jesse replies. “Just wanna take it easy for the rest of the day. Thank you for the competition, though, was a great way to burn some of that energy.”

Taking a breath and holding it, knowing he is itching to rematch, he resigns, exhaling and bowing his head, respecting Jesse’s decision. “Another time, then.”

“Just let me know. But please, continue. Want you good and practised before you challenge me again.” Jesse winks before he walks away, and before he enters the storeroom, he looks over his shoulder. “And Hanzo?” He waits until they make eye contact before adding, “Try harder, next time,” with another wink, and disappearing in the storeroom completely.

“Don’t mind him,” Genji says, practically groaning as he stands next to Hanzo. “He likes to goad when he wins.”

“I don’t mind,” Hanzo says, grinning. Wiping that smirk  _and_ wink off Jesse’s face will be well worth it when they rematch. 


	14. "Some people call this wisdom."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jesse and Hana
> 
> tw: mentions of alcohol, PTSD, implied suicidal thoughts, mild language

The corridors of Watchpoint: Gibraltar are uncharacteristically quiet. Not surprisingly quiet, no, because half the base is on a mission or on leave, or just absent tonight.

Actually, Jesse’s fairly certain it’s just him, Winston, Hana and Angie on base.

The mission in Bangkok took a fair number of them: Hanzo, Genji, Mei and Lúcio. It’s a delicate thing, could blow up in their faces at any moment, and as such, Jesse’s a little on edge. He and Winston are coordinating from the control room, and having his own two eyes on the team has put his mind at ease some.

Now one a.m. and on his break, with Winston covering the shift for the next three hours, Jesse intends to stop by the mess hall for a warm glass of milk to settle his mind and hope for some kind of sleep. He’d go to the trusty bourbon, but he’ll be back on duty in three hours and can’t afford to be inebriated in any way.

He passes the rec room on his way, glancing in and expecting it to be empty given it is quiet, but does a double-take and stops in his tracks, taking a back-step when he sees Hana in there, sitting on the floor, controller in her hand as he stares at the blank screen.

“Evening,” Jesse says, leaning on the door frame. He’s met with silence, and Hana doesn’t move. Frowning, he enters the room, looking at the blank screen. He’s actually certain it is off, not loading whatever she intends on playing. “Quite the game you’re playing,” he tries, chuckling for good measure. “Riveting, I’d say.” More silence, and he looks down at Hana, and Jesse’s fairly sure she hasn’t even registered his presence. Crouching down beside her, he places a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Hana, you—”

Hana flinches, blinking rapidly, breathing shallowly. She looks at Jesse with wild eyes, dropping the controller to the floor and scooting backwards until she hits the couch, and Jesse takes a step back, holding his hands out in front of him.

“It’s all right, it’s just me,” Jesse says slowly, calmly.

She replies with something in Korean, fast and muttered, Jesse couldn’t pick a word if he tried. He waits for her to slow down at the very least before interjecting.

“Sweetheart, you’re gonna have to slow it down, you’re talking a hundred miles a minute and I can’t keep up.”

She looks at him, trailing off mid-sentence, before looking around the room, at the controller on the floor, then back at Jesse. “Jesse… I’m…” her eyes well with tears, and she buries her face in her hands.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Jesse murmurs, approaching slowly. “It’s all right.”

“It’s not,” she replies, muffled. “I let them down, all of them. I shouldn’t be here, I should be at home, protecting them.”

Jesse sits down next to her, letting her know that he is here and close by gently nudging her shoulder with his. “It’s all right.”

“This is stupid,” she says, turning to him. Tears roll down her cheeks, and she quickly wipes them away. He places a hand on her shoulder, slow, cautious, and hopefully comforting. “Being here is stupid. I don’t know why I joined in the first place.”

Jesse inhales and exhales slowly. Hana’s been here for six months, and this is the first time he’s seen this side to her; a side that is completely and utterly vulnerable.

Then, it hits him like a truck. There has been one other time.

_The destruction caused by the omnics here. It reminds me of home._

Jesse mentally slaps himself in the forehead. How could he be so stupid as to not follow up on  _that_? The mission was only a week ago in St. Petersburg. An average run-of-the-mill peacekeeping mission, nothing dangerous or life-threatening, but it was there. That vulnerability, fragility in her voice. He did take note of it because it was quite uncharacteristic for her considering she’s been nothing but smiles and giggles and goading the entire time she’s been an agent. But Jesse, of course, brushed it to the wayside because after that, she was training harder, on the range, in the gym, pulling off all-nighters—and Jesse could give himself  _another_ forehead slap because the warning signs were there.

She’s not okay.

“This got somethin’ to do with the mission last week?” Jesse asks, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

“I can’t let my home turn into that again,” she says quietly. “I just can’t.”

“You know you’re free to leave whenever you want, right? Doesn’t matter where you’re based, you’ll always be Overwatch, no matter where you are.”

“It’s not just them though,” Hana replies, huffing. “The world is fucked. We saw it in Russia. Reinhardt talks all the time about Eichenwalde, about how it’s only now starting to get into some kind of place before the attacks. There’s Busan, and Seoul, and Sydney, Osaka, Austin, Paris… And they’re just the places we know about. The places that had the reports, the most destruction. What about the places in the Middle East? Africa? The other countryside towns in Europe? Kings Row. It’s everywhere, we’re on the grips of another crisis and I can’t go through that again… I can’t…”

She leans into him, and he holds her tight as she sobs. It takes a bit of focus to stop from getting angry at himself for not noticing, at the world for robbing another child of her innocence. Jesse knows that all too well, not having a childhood, being taught to be a fighter from a young age.

Hana’s just another kid, in a long couple decades’ worth of kids who have had their childhoods stolen.

“You can’t carry the weight of the world on your shoulders,” Jesse says quietly. “I get it, I really do. Feeling like you have that responsibility, that if you’re not there, it’ll all turn to shit. You can’t let that get to you, sweetheart, otherwise it’ll eat away at you and you’ll be a bundle of nerves who can’t function.”

She nods, looks into his eyes then looks away, fussing with a loose thread on her jumper.

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

She huffs a little laugh and looks up at him again, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “Did I tell you about the time I single-handedly took down the omnics headed for Busan?”

Jesse shakes his head, even though not only has he heard the story a dozen times at least, he saw the reports which is why they reached out to her in the first place. “How about you tell me over a cup of tea?”

She nods, and Jesse stands, extending a hand and helping her up. He walks her into the mess hall and up to the breakfast bar, sitting her down and he finds a box of tissues, setting that down before busying himself in the kitchen. “Green tea okay?”

“Yeah, I shouldn’t have more caffeine, I’ve been living off energy drinks for the last week.”

“I hope you’ve been getting some decent sleep, too,” he says, looking at her for a response.

She looks at him, then looks away, playing with the scrunched up tissue in her hands. “Couple hours here and there.”

Inhaling and exhaling slowly, Jesse turns his attention back to the tea, grabbing out an old teapot and adding some of Hanzo’s jasmine tea to the strainer. He knows having a go at her will be counterproductive, and honestly, who’s he to judge when he has his sleepless nights, anxiety keeping him with his dark thoughts, the only company is a bottle of Jack and some old movie he’s watched a hundred times already.

“Angie’s got some good stuff if you’re having trouble sleeping,” he says instead, pouring the hot water over the tea leaves and placing the lid back on top. He sets it down on the breakfast bar to steep, along with two mugs, before taking a seat next to her. “I ain’t a stranger to visiting the good doctor after a few sleepless nights.”

“You can fall asleep anywhere,” Hana says with a smirk, “since when do you have trouble sleeping.”

“I fall asleep anywhere because I’m passing out from not sleeping,” he chuckles, “and don’t assume that just ‘cause my hat’s covering my eyes, that I’m asleep.”

“Oh, you’re asleep, we make sure before we bitch about you.”

Jesse scoffs, placing a hand over his chest, mocking hurt. “I thought we were friends.”

“We are,” she says quietly, looking back at the tissue in her hand. “I haven’t told anyone I haven’t been sleeping. Not even Lúcio.”

Jesse takes a breath and holds it, folding his arms across his chest. Hana and Lúcio are joined at the hip, talk to each other about everything. This must be bigger than she’s letting on, and she’s probably reached the end of her tether, given her reaction in the rec room. Who knows what memory she was caught in?

Exhaling, his hands settle in his lap, and he decides that opening up to her might get her talking about what’s really bothering her.

“I have recurring nightmares,” Jesse says slowly, looking at her when she looks at him. “I see all the people I’ve killed over the years. And I can tell you, it’s a damn long line of 'em. I see myself killing them over and over, then I see the families of the innocent ones, grieving, wailing, pounding my chest and screaming in my face. They hand me a gun, I press it to my temple, and when I pull the trigger, I wake up.”

“I didn’t think you were…”

“I’m not,” Jesse says, smiling softly. “Never have been, never will be. Got somethin’ worth living for at the moment, so not about to end it all, don’t worry.”

“I’m happy to hear that,” she says quietly. “Not the nightmares, though, they can go to hell.”

“Yeah,” Jesse chuckles.

“Do you get them often?”

“Naw. Not too much anymore. But when I get them, it throws me off my game.”

“I know the feeling,” she murmurs. “That’s what happened when you found me. I had my first early night in like, ever, crashed because I was so exhausted, had that nightmare, and needed something to distract me, so I came here and… I don’t know. Had a waking nightmare, maybe?”

“Sounds horrible.”

“It fucking sucked,” she whispers, closing her eyes. “Never experienced anything like it.”

Oh, how Jesse’s heart aches for her. He would give anything to take her pain, scrunch it up in a little ball and toss it into the ocean, let it wash away and disappear forever. Absent that, he places a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“I wanna know…“ she starts, opening her eyes and looking at him, just for a moment before turning her attention to her hands, clasping one over the other on the benchtop. Jesse gives her space, pouring the tea into the mugs and setting hers down in front of her. She wraps her hands around it. "I want to know how you live with it.”

“Take things day by day,” Jesse breathes, looking at her. “Focus on the positives in the sea of shit. Ain’t gonna tell you it’ll be easy, because it’s not, but you have to do whatever gets you through each day. Even if it’s streaming your game.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” she murmurs.

“Some people call it wisdom,” Jesse says, winking when she looks at him, and scoffs when she backhands his bicep. “Gee, thanks,” he replies, winking again as he takes a sip of tea. “Seriously though, most of us have had pretty rough pasts. I’ve seen Hanzo, Genji, Lena, Mei up and about at three in the morning, unable to sleep, and I sit them down, share a pot of tea, and discuss the nightmare that’s bothering them. Or the moment in their past that’s bringing them down. You’re not alone, sweetheart, there’s a group of us who are dealing with past struggles.”

“You’re like the base’s unofficial counsellor.”

Jesse barks a laugh. “Yeah, you could say that. It’s just cause I barely sleep, so I see them. Though, having said that, we sit down for chats whenever now.” He looks at Hana and smiles. “Guess what I’m tryin’ to say is, don’t matter what time of day it is, morning, noon, night, eight p.m. or four a.m., if you’re struggling, if you’ve reached the end of your tether and you need to get it all out, you come find me, okay. You don’t have to suffer alone, you don’t have to go through it alone.”

“Thank you,” Hana says, barely a whisper. She stands up and gives Jesse a hug, and he holds her tight.

“It’s all right, sweetheart.”

She smiles when he pulls away, wiping her eyes with her hands. “I haven’t cried in front of anyone since I was a kid.”

“Sometimes you gotta let it out,” Jesse says, smiling. “Though I gotta say, you remind me a helluva lot of me when I was your age. Cocky, invincible, like nothin’ in the world can hurt me.”

“Getting scared in your old age?” Hana goads, sitting back down.

“You have enough close calls, you start to realise that life is fragile, it’s not something you really take for granted.”

She nods slowly, taking a sip of tea. “Sure is,” she murmurs, and those words carry a ton of weight. Then she smiles, meeting Jesse’s eyes. “You seriously wanted to hear that story again?”

Jesse chuckles, shrugs. “Anything to get you talking, honestly.”

“You’ve heard it, like, fifteen times already.”

“It’s a good story, and I’d love to hear it again.”

“All right,” she says, as if she’s unconvinced by his request, even though she smiles wide and turns in her seat to face him. As she starts the story, eyes wide, animated when she speaks, Jesse knows that she’ll be all right.


	15. "I thought you had forgotten."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jesse and Ana
> 
> Implied Reaper76

Jesse had to see them with his own two eyes to believe it.

News reached the base exactly two minutes before the shuttle arrived, letting them know that ‘two former comrades were coming home.’

Now, that could have been anyone. Some higher-up in Overwatch, coming out of retirement. Friends he’d made, other agents like Lena. He certainly didn’t expect anyone from Blackwatch, not when he was certain most of them jumped ship with Gabe and joined Talon.  

He definitely did not expect the thought-dead Jack Morrison  _and_ Ana Amari.

Winston let the cat out of the bag after Genji pestered him for names. Genji was excited, honestly, standing next to Winston to greet them. Jesse watched from afar, saw Morrison step out first, then Ana. Ever the marksman, she singled him out, knew exactly where he was standing, and Jesse gave her a tip of his hat before turning his back on them.

He blew off steam at the training range first, imagining Morrison’s face on every bot, using them as a conduit to shed off that excess anger. How was it fair that Jack ‘died’ in the same explosion that got Gabe, and Jack comes back here and Gabe’s labelled a fucking terrorist?

It’s not fair. But there’s nothing Jesse can do about that, and he can’t exactly avoid Morrison for however long he’s here. Good thing he’s got the training range and a whole mountain of ammo waiting to be used.

When he finished at the training range, no longer feeling like he needed to punch the wall, he cleaned his gun. He knew Ana would find him eventually, and a part of him was glad she didn’t see just how pissed off he was on the range. But even as he meticulously cleaned every part, spent so long the smell of the gun oil was trapped in his nostrils, Ana didn’t show.

When she did, though, it was probably at his best, when he was sitting on the cliffs, watching the sunset while drinking from his flask. She approached silently, sitting down next to him, and didn't’ say anything until Jesse was good and ready.

“Seems like no one stays dead anymore,” he murmurs, turning to face her, and when she looks at him, arms outstretched, he embraces her.

“You look well,” Ana says, “though skinnier than I remember.”

Jesse tries to laugh, but it comes out more like a choked sob. “I missed you,” he whispers.

“I know,” she replies, pulling away and cupping his face, studying him. “You do look well. Older, a little more worn,” she says, thumb tracing the scar over his lips. She huffs a little laugh. “I was glad when Fareeha told me you had rejoined. I lost tabs on you for a while and did fear the worst.”

“Had to go deep underground,” he replies, sitting back when her hands fall from his face. He looks at his flask, thumbing over the inscription,  _G.R._  “After the train robbery. Too many people saw my face.”

“But at least you are here.”

Jesse hums, taking a swig and offering it to Ana. She takes it, gives it a smell before taking a quick swig herself, looking at the inscription and handing the flask back.

“Jesse, I need to tell you something.”

“Gabe,” he guesses, huffing a laugh when she nods. “Paid me a visit ‘bout a month ago. Lured me, if I’m being honest, but saw him face to face.”

“And you know what he has become?”

“Yup.” He sighs, takes another swig. “Almost killed me,” he murmurs, looking at her. “Don’t know why he didn’t. I was there, and he stopped—” he huffs. A month, and he is still trying to wrap his head around what happened. “I suppose I hurt him enough that he retreated, but I shot him in the chest, twice in the head and he didn’t stop, not until the third one. Whatever he is, he ain’t human anymore.”

“That much is obvious,” Ana says, holding out her hand, and Jesse hands her the flask. “He took a shot at Jack, tried to kill me.”

“Fuck,” Jesse murmurs. “Having a go at  _me_ is fair game. I left him. But Jack? They loved each other.”

“They did.”

“And fuck him for taking a shot at you,” he says, anger trying to rear its head before reigning himself in.

“I saved Jack’s life, got in the way of their reunion. It was hardly a surprise.”

Jesse can’t help but smile, and with it those last lingering hints of anger disappear. “Always the troublemaker.”

“I sure am,” she says, taking a swig. “I’m surprised you didn’t lash out at him, if I’m being honest.”

“Jack?” Jesse takes the flask when it’s offered, and Ana nods. “I remember when I joined Blackwatch. Met you and Jack for the first time. Military brass, both of whom weren’t too pleased I’d been picked up and offered this chance of a lifetime. Jack looked down his nose at me, gave Gabe this  _look_ , like ‘you better not fuck this up’…” He chuckles. “Knew at that moment that Jack and Gabe were a little more than friends. But you… You never lashed out, never showed me any disrespect. Treated me as an equal despite my past. I asked you about it, and you know what you said? ‘You’re not defined by the person in your past, but it is not enough to forget them, either. Embrace it, use it to better yourself and become the person you want to be.’”

“I thought you had forgotten…” she whispers, eye welling with tears. 

Jesse smiles, holds back a tide of emotion as he wraps an arm around Ana’s shoulders and holds her close. “You’d think I’d ever forget those words of wisdom from the great Ana Amari? Never. I repeat those words whenever I’m at a crossroads, whenever I think I’m slipping back into that person I was. Gotta say though, it took losing you and Gabe for it to really sink in.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you—”

“Don’t,” Jesse says, shaking his head. “I get it, you had your reasons. Did Ree know?”

“Only recently.”

“She can keep a damn good secret. I had no idea.”

“She is my daughter, after all,” Ana chuckles.

Jesse hums, and they fall into a comfortable silence. They watch the last lingering hints of the sun on the horizon, and when it finally disappears, Jesse can’t help but smile. Having Ana here, knowing she’s alive… His whole world just got a little bit brighter.


	16. "This is gonna be so much fun!"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hana and Brigitte

“This is gonna be so much fun!”

“You say that every time, and every time you get caught.”

Hana rolls her eyes, settling on Brigitte once more. “But we’ve got the home field advantage this time. Look at him!” She gestures to Torbjörn sleeping on the couch. “You’ll know his tells for when he’s about to wake. And he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to wake up halfway through and  _wait till we’re done_  before giving us the scare of our lives. Unlike a  _certain_ cowboy.”

“Just like to throw it back in your faces,” Jesse murmurs from the other side of the room, eyes still on the ridiculous cowboy movie he insisted on watching that put half the room to sleep and sent the other half away, bored out of their brains. “Give you a taste of your own medicine.”

“You’re lucky Hanzo’s asleep on you,” Hana retorts, “otherwise  _he’d_ be the target, considering he’s  _never_ asleep in here.”

Jesse doesn’t reply, and Hana looks at Hanzo, head resting on Jesse’s shoulder, wondering if she could get away with something, but knowing Hanzo he’s probably the lightest sleeper in existence and would wake up the second he heard footsteps approach him. So she turns her attention back to Torbjörn, who is at least lying down, arms folded across his chest and head upwards facing the ceiling, and is the perfect target for her prank.

“This is a bad idea,” Brigitte warns. “He’ll wake up in a bad mood.”

“And we’ll be out of the room before he does wake up.” She looks at Brigitte and smiles. “Trust me.”

Brigitte takes a breath and holds it, just for a moment, before nodding. “When I say run, we run, okay?”

“Yes!” Hana says, grabbing a bag of chips from the table, plucking one out and placing it on Torbjörn’s forehead. “One.” And she continues, one after the other, until she’s got eight stacked high, the tower coming precariously close to falling. “Okay,” she breathes, taking a step back, holding in a tide of laughter as she snaps a photo, one that’ll be put up next to the rest of them in her collection who have met a similar fate. “Do you think he’ll wake up soon?” she asks, pulling a chip from the bag and eating it.

“He’s a heavy sleeper,” Brigitte answers, holding out her hand. Hana offers the bag, she grabs a small handful. “We might be right to continue.” She eats one, then places one on his forearm, and Hana cannot contain her joy that Brigitte, the voice of reason and the usual angel on her shoulder, is actually playing along for once.

“See, isn’t this fun?” Hana whispers, alternating stacking chips on top his arm with Brigitte.

“It’s kind of fun.”

“I knew I’d corrupt you one day,” Hana replies, side-eyeing Brigitte and smirking.

“If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” She places a chip on top of the stack, and it starts to wobble with his breathing. “All right, I think we stop with that one. Take a picture, quick!”

Grinning, Hana picks her phone from the table and snaps another photo. “Reckon we can take it further?”

Brigitte looks at Torbjörn for a moment and nods. “His other arm.”

“I love this,” Hana says, offering Brigitte the chip packet. “Seriously, what changed your mind?”

“You were going to do this anyway, I was going to be dragged down with you, so might as well give in.” She looks at Hana and smirks. “It’s not like your usual crew is here.”

“Lúcio had the sense to leave the second Jesse announced the movie was—” She stops her approach, holding her breath when Torbjörn adjusts in his sleep, and lets it out slowly when he settles down. She looks at Brigitte from the corner of her eye, sees her nod, and she relaxes, pulling away to regain her composure. “I was ready to run, I’m telling you.”

“Maybe we should stop.”

Hana analyses Torbjörn for a few moments, then shakes her head. “If you don’t think he’s gonna wake up, we can keep going.” She looks into the bag. “We’ve only got a few more to go anyway.”

Brigitte inhales and exhales slowly, nodding when she continues stacking. “Where is Lúcio?”

“In his music room, working on something new. Said I wasn’t allowed in because it’s a surprise.”

“Oh, a surprise?” Brigitte says, and when Hana glances at her, she winks.

“It’s not like that,” Hana replies, placing a chip on top before resting her hands in her lap. “He’s a friend. A good friend.”

“Do you want it to be more?”

Hana looks at her, opens her mouth to speak, and stops. Lúcio is a friend, her first friend here, who has seen her at her best and her worst. The last thing she wants to do is ruin that. “No,” she answers, slowly, carefully as if tasting the word on her tongue for the first time, and nods slowly when she realises she isn’t regretting saying it. “I’m not looking for a relationship, anyway.”

“Oh,” Brigitte murmurs, and for a brief second, Hana swears she sees disappointment flash on Brigitte’s face, before it’s replaced with a smile. “Yeah, of course. I mean, it’s dangerous, what we do.”

“Can be at times,” Hana replies, looking into the packet and pulling out a chip. “Besides,” she whispers, “the base is going crazy ‘cause of those two.”

Brigitte glances over her shoulder, then looks back at Hana, leaning in. “You think something’s happening there?”

“You tell me.”

“He’s just asleep on Jesse’s shoulder. I’m sure Jesse would leave anyone who fell asleep on him.”

Hana shrugs. “I think it’s more likely to happen than not,” she breathes, placing the chip on top before reaching into the packet. “Last one,” she says, grinning. When Brigitte smiles back, Hana offers the chip to her. “You do the honours.”

“Get your phone ready.”

“Right.” Hana picks up her phone and holds it up as the camera app loads. “Smile,” she says, and Brigitte holds the chip above the stack, looks at the camera smiling wide, and Hana snaps it. She takes another when Brigitte looks back, when she places the chip on top, and when she pulls away.

Then, Torbjörn groans, unfolds his arms, the chips fall off him and before Hana can even breathe, Brigitte has her hand, she’s pulled to standing and dragged out of the room and into the mess hall, and the second the door is closed, Brigitte bursts out into laughter that is so infectious Hana finds herself laughing along.

“That was close,” Brigitte says as her laughter subsides.

“Was he waking up?”

“Fifty-fifty chance of him waking or moving in his sleep. Either way, we wouldn’t want to have stayed in there.” She pauses, looks at the door. “I can’t hear him, so I’m assuming he’s still asleep.”

“Wanna take a look at the damage?”

“Nope,” Brigitte says quickly. “Not going anywhere near him till he’s calmed down from when he wakes up.” She looks at Hana’s phone in her hand. “Can I see the pictures?”

Hana gets out her phone, opens the gallery and Brigitte bursts into laughter again, her hand gripping her wrist tight, and when it shows the one where Brigitte’s smiling, Hana can’t help but just stare at it, feeling a little wellness of warmth in her chest. She looks at Brigitte as her giggling subsides, as she wipes the tears forming at the corners of her eyes, and when she settles into a smile.

“Oh gosh, delete that one. I look awful.”

Hana’s smile only grows wider, and she shakes her head. “Nope, I think this one is my favourite.”


	17. "I'll tell you but you're not gonna like it."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lúcio, Genji and Angela.
> 
> Gencio

Lúcio feels like the proverbial third wheel right now. Or the three in ‘three’s a crowd’.

It’s not that he’s crashing a date. No, it’s the opposite of that. He glances at Angela, her piercing blue eyes boring right into Genji, who is matching her staredown. Genji… malfunctioned, for lack of a better word, practically begged Lúcio  _not_ to take him down to see Angela, because she would be pissed off. Genji was convinced he could fix the issue himself, but after potentially making it worse and conceding that he needs her help, he was wheeled down on the chair he was sitting on at the time.

Angela knew something was up the second they stepped into the medbay. Well, Lúcio guesses anyone would know something was up when their patient was wheeled in sitting on an office chair. Doing her job, and none too pleased about the sight before her, she asked what happened, and that’s where they sit, unmoving, staring each other down because Genji is too proud, or stubborn, or  _scared_ of how Angela will react. Lúcio’s not too sure which of the three it is, or whether it’s all three in combination.

But this  _is_ bordering on ridiculous now. The tension between them could be cut with a knife, and every time Lúcio thinks he can open his mouth and just get this ball rolling, he finds himself unable to, because if he’s being honest, he’s terrified of Angela’s staredown.

Time ticks by slowly, and Lúcio supposes because they have a history they’re not budging. But when he feels a bead of sweat trickle down his neck, he decides enough is enough.

“All right,” he says, and they don’t even blink in response, let alone acknowledge that he’s spoken. Lúcio gives it a few seconds, and once he realises neither of them is going to break first, he concedes. “I’ll tell you but you’re not gonna like it.”

 _Now_ Angela looks at him, and he hesitates. “Well?” she prompts.

“It’s my fault, honestly,” Lúcio starts, and stops when Genji raises his hand.

“It was not Lúcio’s fault,” Genji says, eyes still on Angela. “I agreed to it.”

“Agreed to what?”

Lúcio looks down at Genji, and when Genji nods, he looks back at Angela. “I… asked if I could hook his lights up to my music.”

Well, if Lúcio thought he was terrified before, he knows true terror now, as her gaze shifts to him, and he swears she sees his eye twitch. “You what?!”

“We made sure all of the proper safeties were in place,” Genji says, she looks back at him and Lúcio breathes a sigh of relief. “It worked the first time… Not the second, though.”

“And what happened the second time?”

“We tried to see if we could change the colours he was emitting,” Lúcio answers.

For the first time since the original question was asked, Angela moves, throwing her hands up in the air, muttering in German as she heads into her office. She continues in there, and Lúcio’s German might be rusty but he knows cuss words when he hears them.

“She always like that,” Lúcio whispers.

“No. I have only seen her like this a handful of times. She is rarely this angry.”

“That’s good, I guess,” Lúcio says as he glances into her office. 

“Don’t worry, she’s just protective.”

“Should I be worried?” Lucio asks, winking when Genji glances up at him.

“Never,” Genji says, patting the hand on his shoulder. 

Lúcio smiles, glancing back at the office. “In any case, remind me to never get on her bad side ever again.”

“You and me both,” he murmurs, slipping his hand away as Angela steps out of her office, thankfully silent, with a small tool case in her hand.

“This should be a quick fix,” Angela says, pulling up a chair and sitting down. “Unless your fiddling around has made it even worse.”

“I didn’t break anything,” Genji says.

“So you being wheeled down in a chair has nothing to do with what’s happened?”

“Well… yeah. But it was the lights, not what I did after.”

Another string of German, and Angela spins Genji in his seat, accessing the control panel at the back of his head. “The easiest thing to do is give you a reset,” she says, tone clipped.

“I hate resets,” Genji groans.

“It’s not a case of literally turning him off and on again, is it?” Lúcio asks, because Genji is far from a piece of technology, even though it makes up a large part of him.

Angela sighs. “I am going to momentarily disconnect his nervous system from the prostheses. Similar to disconnecting a prosthesis from the body and attaching it again.”

“Except I can’t be removed from mine,” Genji says, “so Angela has to cut off my nervous system. And I hate it. Every time.”

“Well, you should have thought about that before hooking up outside technology to yourself,” Angela scolds. “What were you thinking?!”

“I wasn’t,” Genji replies, and it stops Angela in her tracks. They seem to have a strange, silent conversation, because after a moment Genji replies with, “Yeah.”

Angela inhales and exhales slowly, turning her attention to the control panel. “This will only be for a moment, and I am confident it will fix the issue,” she says.

Genji nods. “Just tell me when.”

After a few moments of work, she nods. “I’m going to initiate the reset.”

“Okay,” Genji breathes, closing his eyes, and then his head slumps to the side. Lúcio looks from Genji to Angela, who seems to be counting upwards, mouthing the numbers, before working again, and Genji’s head snaps back upright again. “Fuck I hate that,” he groans, pressing his cybernetic hand to his temple.

“And it seems to have worked,” Angela says, reattaching the control panel and stepping back.

Genji looks down at his legs, moves his feet and cautiously weightbears, and when he holds his arm out, Lúcio takes it, helping him to stand. “Thanks, Angie, for this.”

“Yeah, thanks doc.”

“Not a problem,” she sighs. “No hooking lights up to him again,” she says sternly.

“Won’t happen again,” Lúcio says, holding up his hand. She nods, and he looks at Genji. “All right, Genji, let’s get you back to your room.” He walks Genji out of the medbay, taking slow, short steps, going at his pace. It isn’t until they’re well beyond the medbay, around the corner and in the silence of the dimmed nighttime corridors that Lúcio is confident in speaking again. “What was that back there?”

“What was what?”

“That moment where you admitted you shouldn’t have agreed to be hooked up to my music, and then you had that weird silent conversation.”

Genji smiles, he pulls his arm away and his hand ends up in Lúcio’s, and he pulls it up to his mouth, kissing the back of his hand. “I know you wanted to keep it on the down-low, but she worked it out.”

Lúcio can feel the heat creep up his cheeks. “Oh.”

“Don’t worry,” he says with a grin, wrapping his arm around Lúcio’s shoulders and pulling him in close, kissing the top of his head. “She can keep a secret.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And if anyone's interested in knowing what Genji and Lucio were doing _exactly_ when they hooked up the lights, [you can give it a read here.](https://chilliebean5.tumblr.com/post/179621184306/lodicrous-asked-this-with-the-day-17)


	18. "You should have seen it."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Widowmaker and Sombra, with Hanzo cameo.
> 
> Canon-typical violence, mentions of blood.

“Did I tell you about the time I hacked into Moira’s files to find some dirt?”

“And why would you want to do that?” Widowmaker sighs.

“So I could use it against her, of course!” Sombra replies, rolling her eyes. “Wanna know what I found?”

“No.”

“A folder.”

Widowmaker just looks at her with the flattest expression she can muster. The sooner she has eyes on the target the happier she will be because Sombra will  _not_  be here.

“Aww, come on, you’re a little bit interested, I know you are.”

Widowmaker rolls her eyes, picks up her rifle and checks it again. It will be easier entertaining her instead of ignoring her. “A folder?”

“A folder! Three terabytes.”

“Of?”

“You’re not gonna believe it.”

“Just—” Widowmaker closes her eyes, fighting the urge to grapple hook away to another building. She spent days finding this perfect spot and it would be a shame to throw that away. “What did you find?”

“Manga.”

“Manga?”

“Manga.” Sombra smiles wide. “I know, I bet you were expecting hidden experiments or even porn. But no. Manga. Then I found another folder full of anime. Dozens of old TV shows dating back almost a hundred years.”

“She has an interest,” Widowmaker says, shrugging, scanning the skyline. “Hers is manga and anime, yours is hacking.”

“And yours is killing, I get the point,” Sombra retorts. “I found more.”

“ _Must_ you drag this out?”

“Cosplay.”

“I really don’t care.”

“Oh no, you will. Old cosplay way back when she was still Overwatch. Her and Ziegler seemed to have had a  _thing_.”

Well, that’s certainly piqued her interest. She doesn’t let Sombra know that, though, looking at her with another blank expression. “And what did you do with all of this  _important_ information.”

“The anime and manga I’ll save for another day. The cosplay, though, I saved all of those pictures on my personal hard drive, and took the one with Ziegler, waited till she finished for the night—which was at like two a.m., the woman never sleeps, and then made it the desktop background for all of her monitors.”

“You’re the only one with the capabilities of doing such things.”

“I know. You think I like to remain anonymous when I torment the good doctor? No.” Sombra stands now, pacing up and down the rooftop, smiling wide. “I sneak in when she does under my stealth, and her face when the picture pops up… You should have seen it.” She laughs, stopping when they make eye contact. “Oh, come on, it’s a little bit funny.

“Not really,” Widowmaker sighs, looking back at the skyline.

“Guess you had to be there. But she panicked. Hard. Like, turned off her monitors, practically hid in the corner of the room.”

“I somehow doubt that.”

“Let me have this, okay!”

“Not when you lie through your teeth—” Widowmaker smirks, activating her comms. “Targets on site.”

“ _Get in position_ ,” Reaper’s voice crackles through the comms.

“See you in a bit,” Sombra says, dropping her translocator and activating stealth.

“Finally,” Widowmaker murmurs, looking through her sights for the target. It’s not on the group in the conference room, not the monkey, the cowboy, the pest of a woman who keeps getting under her skin who is in said conference room. No, her target will be on the roof, just like her, watching and waiting for her to slip up. Except she won’t slip up. She has faced him once before, engaged in quite a thrilling duel, and it is a good thing that on this mission she is not required to take out another target, that her target is the sniper with his archaic bow and arrows. She scoffs. While he provided quite the challenge, he is hardly worth the effort.

She hears a thunk from the stairwell behind her, but doesn’t react, she placed a venom mine there so anyone who comes up will meet their fate. She continues methodically scanning the rooftops and doesn’t see him. Good, this will be a challenge after all. Then, from the corner of her eye, she spots a glint, and she turns, seeing the arrow fly right at her. She doesn’t flinch, she knows from the trajectory it was meant as a warning shot, and it whistles past her head, embedding in the ground behind her.

He stands tall, arrow drawn and clearly overconfident in his actions. She gives him a little smirk, looks through her sights, aims for his head, then slightly to the left, firing, and to his credit he barely flinches, leaning out of the way as the bullet whizzes past him. It was meant as the warning shot, just as his arrow was; where is the fun in taking out your target first chance you get?

He fires another arrow, this one she recognises as potentially hitting her, so she ducks, the arrow narrowly missing her. By the time she looks back through her scope, he is gone. She smirks, scanning adjacent rooftops before focusing on the one he was on again because he doesn’t have the means for escape like she does. Another thunk from the stairwell, and this time she glances over, just for a brief moment, wondering what that is, but doesn’t see anything out of the ordinary. She focuses on the rooftop he was on again, still empty, still not showing himself.

“If that is how you want to play it,” she murmurs, activating her infra-sight, and sees his heat signature on the roof, lying down, aiming an arrow upwards. She sees the moment he fires—and she rolls away, the arrow lands in her previous spot. She sees him again, ready to fire another arrow, and she doesn’t take a chance, this time shuffling backwards as that arrow lands in her previous spot.

She seethes, hiding behind the stairwell and thus her eyes are no longer on him. Looking at the skyline, she sees another potential site, a higher rooftop which should provide an advantage since he is cowering behind cover, and she launches her grappling hook. It catches on the rooftop and she tugs on it for measure before being pulled in, and she feels a burning in her thigh. She pushes that aside, disconnecting the line so she can flip over the roof, which she does less than gracefully because of the pain, landing instead with a solid thud. She hides behind cover for the moment, seeing the arrow that’s fully pierced her thigh, snapping the fletching end and tossing it to the ground before pulling the arrow out completely. Blood trickles out of the wound, but that is of no matter. Blood has been drawn, and she is done playing with her prey.

She turns her head, enough to face his direction and with her infra-sight still active, she sees his heat signature, on a rooftop two buildings over. She has a slight height advantage still, so she utilises that, gets as close as she can without revealing herself, sees the top of his head, crawls a little more—

“ _All hands. Retreat._ ”

“But—”

“ _Retreat. Now!_ ”

Widowmaker growls when the sniper disappears behind an air conditioning duct, watching as he leaps away from her before getting lost in a sea of heat signatures. Turning off her infra-sight and deeming it safe, she walks the rooftop, spots two arrows with rounded tips sticking out of the stairwell of the building she was on, then sees Sombra appear. She has a cut along her face, looks about as angry as Widowmaker feels, and when they make eye contact, Widowmaker gestures to the arrows, and Sombra approaches, plucking one out. At the very least, they will have the ability to work out what it is, but Widowmaker has her suspicions that it is infrared, which is why he was able to see where she was.

With a sigh, she turns her back on the sniper’s last location, watches as the dropship gets close enough to her to lower the ladder, and as she grabs hold, Sombra appears beside her.

“Well this mission was a resounding failure,” Sombra says, gesturing to Widowmaker’s thigh.

It takes all of Widowmaker’s willpower not to convince the aircraft to leave Sombra behind. Just when her day couldn’t get any worse, now she has to listen to Sombra for the rest of the journey back to base.


	19. "Oh please, like this is the worst I have done."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hanzo and Genji
> 
> Mentions of alcohol and drinking.

“What have you done?”

“Oh please, like this is the worst I have done.”

“This  _is_ the worst you have done!” Hanzo seethes, looking at the open window of their father’s den. At the very least the lights are off, so he is no longer in there. “Father will be furious!”

“Not if we go in there and clean it up before he can see the damage.”

Hanzo presses his palm to his forehead, suddenly feeling nauseous, and he knows it is not from the alcohol he has consumed over the course of the night. What if they damaged his desk? The shelf of alcohol? The priceless artwork on his walls? He places his bow on the ground, sits cross-legged and cradles his head in his hands. “I think I am going to be sick.”

“All right, okay,” Genji says, tipping the quiver of arrows and placing it in Hanzo’s lap. “Here.”

“Get that—” Hanzo pushes it away, sitting up. “Not literally right this second,” he hisses. “I have the means to make it to a toilet.”

“Do you want—”

“Just give me a moment!” Hanzo pushes Genji away, realises too late he did not intend to do it so forcefully, before looking at him. “Sorry,” he mutters. “Can you get me a glass of water?”

“Sure,” Genji says, patting Hanzo’s shoulder and walking away, and Hanzo closes his eyes and relishes in the dead silence of the night.

It does not matter that no one was in the den at the time, and it does not matter that there was no sound of anything breaking when the shuriken was flung in there. What  _does_ matter is they indulged in the bottle of whiskey Genji got for his twentieth birthday. That they drank over half of it between them. That they then thought it wise to go outside, break out the practice swords before taking a giant leap and using their actual weapons.

At least they had the sense to use their ranged weapons instead of their katanas.

Not that any of that matters. Hanzo knew it was a bad idea from the moment Genji walked into his room with the whiskey in his hands. They should have stayed there, played card games, watched the wrestling and made stupid bets before falling asleep and nursing—and hiding—the hangover in the morning.

But now, they will have to go into the den, see the damage, try and hide said damage, and make sure they do not run into Father, the guards, or worse, one of the elders.

Hanzo can see the elders now. ‘ _Will you open your eyes now and see Genji is a liability?_ ’, ‘ _He is corrupting the future of this clan_ ’, ‘ _How could you let yourself be swayed by Genji’s ways. You are smarter than that._ ’ He shudders at the very thought.

Of course, he cannot have a break. A night where he can forget the stress of University and the clan, be an ordinary person rather than the young master everyone tells him he is. How  _dare_ he even think he is deserving of such things.

He rolls his eyes and huffs, giving into this moment of self-loathing before sitting upright again, closing his eyes and breathing in deep, letting the rational part of his brain take over. If they are to get away with this, he needs to think of a plan. He knows the guard’s rotations and routes, so that will make getting in and not being discovered easy. Any damage to the walls or beams will be easier to hide than broken glass or pierced paintings, but there is no point worrying about that until they assess the damage. They need to put all of the equipment away, drink a large amount of water, try to get to sleep so when they wake up, they are able to function normally enough while hiding any remnants of a hangover.

Hearing a creak, he opens his eyes, seeing Genji approach, two bottles of water in his hands. “Here,” Genji says, offering a bottle, and Hanzo takes it. “How are you feeling?”

“Better.” Hanzo takes a series of gulps. “We have about ten minutes to put the equipment away, survey the damage, think about how we can fix it, then retreat to our rooms before we are discovered.”

“Thought it all through, huh?”

“We must hide all evidence of what was done, otherwise we will be monitored twenty-four-seven, and I do not want that.”

“You and me both,” Genji murmurs, sitting next to Hanzo.

“And I think next time, we should try sneaking out. That way if we feel the urge to destroy property it will not be ours.”

“Next time? After this,” Genji gestures to the open window with the tilt of his head, “I was convinced that you would never ever want to do anything that remotely saw you breaking Father’s rules.”

Hanzo smiles, looks at Genji and drapes his arm over his shoulder. “Despite  _this_ , I had fun tonight.”

“You? Fun?” Genji scoffs. “Never thought I would see the day.”

Smirking, Hanzo presses his palm to Genji’s face, pushing him away. Genji scoffs again, and Hanzo stands, offers a hand to help him up. They quickly pack up and head to their father’s den, and for every step Hanzo takes, he grows more anxious, right until they are standing outside the doors. He feels so nauseous right now he might actually be sick this time.

“Let’s get this over with,” Genji whispers, opening the shoji screen.

Hanzo’s eyes dart around the room, looking at the walls first, at the artwork which is untouched, and he breathes a sigh of relief. The alcohol cabinet and his desk are also clear, and Hanzo’s anxiety starts to melt away.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Genji says, and Hanzo can hear the amusement in his voice, watching as he crouches down on the bamboo rug. “One in a billion shot, I’m telling you.”

Hanzo approaches, sees the shuriken sticking out of the mat, which landed between two pieces of bamboo. “I…” he cannot contain his smirk. “We are so lucky.”

“I am sure there is a hole in the floor, but he will not know it is there for years.” Genji plucks the shuriken from the floor with barely any force, so any hole would be minute at best.

“Good, now let’s get out of here before we get caught,” Hanzo says, standing, leading the way to their rooms. He rushes into his own room as Genji closes the screen to his door, and the second Hanzo closes his screen, he breathes a sigh of relief. He cannot believe they just got away with that, and if anything, it has him wanting to break curfew just to feel the thrill, the adrenaline high again.


	20. "I hope you have a speech prepared."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jesse and Hanzo
> 
> Mentions of alcohol and alcohol abuse
> 
> (Part two of the McHanzo story)

It took nearly two months, but as Jesse stands in the newest section of the training range, hardlight targets looking back at him, he can’t help but whistle in appreciation. “Nice job, Hanzo.”

“Thank you,” Hanzo replies, smirking. He looks at the targets before turning his attention back to his bow, and Jesse can’t actually believe he uses one  _and_ claims to be better at it than a gun.

And if Jesse is being completely honest, he is sceptical that Hanzo can win against his gun. Arrows travel slower, take longer to draw and loose than pulling the trigger of his gun. Yeah, reloading takes some time, but Jesse’s got it down to an art form now; 1.3 seconds for six bullets, compared to that long at least per arrow.

In any case, he will entertain Hanzo, because this is the first time in a while that he has looked genuinely happy, and according to Genji the first time in a week he has not had alcohol in his system. They had some sort of blow up, so much so that not even Genji wants to talk about it, and after the week-long bender they put it aside and worked together on finishing this section of the training range. 

Ultimately, Jesse might not know Hanzo that well, given he does prefer solitude, but boy, he can relate to that behaviour, turning to the bottle when shit gets tough. He glances at Hanzo as he inspects the tension of his bow, and realises he should get into the same competitive mindset Hanzo’s clearly in. “I still don’t think you can beat me an’ ol’ Peacekeeper with your bow,” he says, unholstering Peacekeeper and spinning her on his finger.

Hanzo glances at him from the corner of his eye. “Storm Bow and I will be victorious tonight.”

“You sound mighty sure of yourself.”

“I am sure,” Hanzo says, smirk growing wider.

“I hope you have a speech prepared.”

Hanzo’s eyes snap to meet Jesse’s, and Jesse can  _see_ that competitive glint in his eye. “Would it be too much to call an all-hands meeting?”

Jesse can’t help but laugh. “I like you, Shimada.” So it seems he has a wicked sense of humour too, and while Jesse’s been trying to get to know him better since he joined, he really wants to crack that hardened exterior now. “Tell you what, how about we make this a little interesting?”

“Go on,” Hanzo says, turning to face him.

“Loser buys the first round of drinks.”

“Just the first round?” Hanzo takes a step towards him, smirking again. “Are you afraid of losing, McCree?”

“Absolutely not. Just giving you the option because I can hold my liquor.”

“As can I.”

“Don’t want you having to pay for several rounds.”

“Money is no issue.” Hanzo’s practically grinning now. “Unless it is for you?”

“Nup, no issue,” Jesse replies, grinning back. “Fine, loser buys drinks tonight.”

Hanzo extends his hand, and Jesse shakes it. “Agreed.”

“A’ight,” Jesse breathes, looking at the targets. “Since this is your baby, what are the rules?”

“Speed rounds,” Hanzo says, turning his attention to the console on the wall. The targets start moving, their patterns unpredictable. “This program will not only have random movements, but new targets will spawn when ones take damage. We will start with fifty targets each.”

“I like it,” Jesse says, nodding. “How many rounds?”

Hanzo looks over his shoulder, devilish grin on his face. “Until you concede that I have won”

“Oh, you’re on, Shimada,” Jesse chuckles. We’ll be here all night, waiting for you to concede that I’m the faster shot.” He smirks. “How about we make it a little easier on you, I’ll stick to just headshots, you can do body shots.”

“I do not require an advantage,” Hanzo retorts. “Headshots only.”

Jesse shrugs. “Your funeral. The floor’s yours, Shimada,” he says, tipping his hat and taking a good few steps back.

“Challengers first,” he retorts, arm extended to the range.

Jesse gives him a good, long stare, and knows that if he insisted Hanzo go first, they could be stuck in this stalemate for the rest of the night and someone’s got to give because he really needs to see if Hanzo’s as big of a shot as he claims to be. “Okay,” Jesse says, approaching him and winking as he passes. He stands in front of the targets, and he can’t help but smile; he still can’t believe he’s about to enter a duel with an archer of all things.

“There will be a countdown,” Hanzo says, standing beside the console. “Be ready.”

Jesse looks at him from over his shoulder. “Oh, I am ready.” And with that, Hanzo presses at the console, there are three countdown beeps before a final beep and the targets start moving. He’s off like a rocket, counting the shots in his head as he goes, factoring in tracking and reloading he thinks he’s at around one hit per second. Not bad at all. When he lands the final headshot and the alarm rings, he turns, blows the smoke from the muzzle and holsters Peacekeeper, looking at Hanzo.

“Athena, time?” Hanzo asks.

“ _50.25 seconds_ ,” the AI coolly responds.

“Not bad,” Hanzo says, then a cocky grin spreads on his lips. “But will it be enough?”

“Oh, it will be,” Jesse says confidently, taking a few steps back and giving Hanzo the range.

Hanzo bows his head, picks his quiver from the floor and straps it to his back, before standing in front of the reset targets, shrugging his shoulders and rolling his head. “I am ready,” he calls over his shoulder.

Jesse presses the console, the countdown beep starts, and on the final beep, with lightning-fast reflexes, Hanzo starts the round. Mouth agape, Jesse watches, awestruck, dumbfounded and put in his place as Hanzo lands headshot after headshot, plucking three arrows at a time to cut down on reaching behind him, shooting the three of them in what has to be under two seconds. And he doesn’t know the pattern at least, while his reflexes are quick as a flash, he isn’t predicting where they’ll appear. Before Jesse can look back at Hanzo, the final beep sounds, and Hanzo stands up straight again.

“Athena, time?”

“ _48.55 seconds_.”

Hanzo’s eyes snap to meet Jesse’s and he’s got the biggest grin on his face. “I never thought I would see the day.”

“I’m…”

“Speechless, gunslinger?”

Jesse just stares at Hanzo, knows he should close his mouth because he’s sure he looks like a damn fish, but can’t. “How…?” is all he can muster.

“Years of training. Would you like a rematch, see if you can beat me?”

“Nup, I wanna hear the stories, how many hours of training, how you’re so goddamn  _faster_ than a gun! That’s impressive Hanzo, I take my hat off to you,” he says, doing just that, pressing his hat to his chest.

Hanzo stands up a little taller, practically puffs out his chest. “Thank you,” he says, and despite his cocky actions, the response is genuine.

“C’mon,” Jesse says, placing his hat back on his head. “Let’s get cleaned up here and head out. Drinks are on me, after all.”


	21. "Impressive, truly."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hanzo and Jesse
> 
> (Part three of the McHanzo story)

Hanzo sits in the booth of an old English style pub. Wooden furnishings and tables which have seen years of use, leather seats, worn enough that it is soft and supple, but not too far gone that it is starting to crack. A favourite bar, frequented by Overwatch after a successful mission, Jesse told him on the drive over.

Despite being with Overwatch for two months, having gone on a handful of missions which were deemed a success, this is his first time here. He didn’t intend to make friends, he joined Overwatch because he owed it to Genji, a chance to redeem himself, do right by him and make up for ten years of thinking he was dead.

Genji told Hanzo about the people who had answered the recall before he joined, the ones who helped piece him back together. He told him this newly reformed Overwatch were eager to bolster their numbers, and honestly, they must have been desperate to accept their friend’s supposed murderer. Hanzo didn’t care what they thought, though, because he was here for Genji, and Genji alone.

Hanzo has kept his distance in these two months, has remained civil, cooperating on missions and being a valued team member when required by him. He didn’t want to be an inconvenience to Genji; Hanzo imagines he pulled in large favours for Overwatch to take him in so easily. During downtime between missions, he was happy when everyone respected his personal space.

But the last thing Hanzo expected—much less deserved—was their kindness.

“Here you go,” Jesse says, placing down the glass of top-shelf scotch he insisted on getting despite Hanzo’s protests, sinking into the opposite seat. He holds up his glass in a toast, and Hanzo picks up his. “Cheers.”

“Kanpai,” Hanzo responds, taking a sip, letting the alcohol rest on his tongue a moment before swallowing. “Very nice.”

“Smooth,” Jesse says, smiling. “The bossman used to buy us this back in my Blackwatch days after a successful mission. It’s what we open with when we come here now.”

“If you indulge in this as your first round, I have clearly been missing out,” Hanzo replies, taking another sip. It is enough to hide his smile behind his glass as Jesse smiles wide back at him.

“It don’t last, after the good scotch it’s back to on-tap beer.”

Hanzo can’t help but wrinkle his nose. “Why would anyone chase down this,” he looks at the amber liquid in his glass, “with beer?”

“Right?!” Jesse leans forward. “I don’t get it either!” He pauses, smiles even wider. “Shit, I’m glad someone  _finally_ agrees with me.”

“You do not drink the beer?”

“Hell no,” Jesse says, shaking his head as he sits back in his seat. “Either savour the single glass or indulge in a second. I like to be designated driver, y’know? Make sure everyone else is having a good time, keepin’ an eye on them, make sure they don’t get up to any mischief.”

That… is entirely not what Hanzo expected from Jesse McCree, a man who he has caught on multiple occasions nursing a bottle of whiskey on base. If anything, he expected Jesse to be front and centre of the partying, for a man who dresses as boisterous as he is surely not reserved when allowed to celebrate. “Do you sit alone, then?”

“Not really, the team usually don’t move from the booth unless they’re trying to hit on someone, but the more they drink the less sense they start to make. Conversation goes over my head unless they ask me something directly.”

“Perhaps then I will join you next successful mission. So you do not have to drink alone.”

Jesse smiles, and Hanzo finds it too infectious to fight it. “I’d like that,” Jesse nods, “it’ll be good having an intelligent conversation, having someone to silently judge the others for their bad drinking choices.” His smile then softens a little, and he brings his voice down, “Can sit in a separate booth, too, if they start getting too much.”

“I would like that,” Hanzo replies. He takes another sip of the scotch, imagines a night where he is here with Jesse and the team, being friendly, laughing and joking… and doesn’t outright hate it. A part of him, though, a small niggling part he has tried to bury time and time again knows that this is just a bubble waiting to burst, that soon enough the rest of the agents will see him for who he truly is; a murderer who is undeserving of their kindness. Despite Genji’s assurances that  _that_ will never happen, he has seen it behind their eyes, the way they look at him, hush their conversations when he enters a room. 

It is only a matter of time.

“But until then,” Jesse says, leaning forward, “tell me about you and how you got so damned good with a bow.”

Hanzo cannot help but grin. “I started training at nine years of age.”

“So thirty years? Yeah, that makes sense,” Jesse says, stroking his beard. “Literal decades of perfecting those skills. That was some fancy shooting tonight, Hanzo, ain’t seen anything quite like it.” He smiles. “Impressive, truly.”

“As are your skills. I consider myself skilled with a gun, but after that first challenge I realised never to underestimate you.”

“Well shoot, ain’t that the nicest thing anyone’s ever said?” Jesse smiles wide. “Were you actually worried that I’d beat you tonight?”

“Hardly,” Hanzo replies, adding a little playful scoff and eye roll with his smirk.

“Hardly ain’t never.” Jesse winks.

“I know what I said,” Hanzo says, before looking into his glass. A part of him was concerned that Jesse would best him, and two seconds is a minute difference. Hanzo has yet to find someone he considers equal to him, but he thinks he may have found it in Jesse McCree. “We will have to rematch,” he looks up, smiles at Jesse’s eager grin, “see if you can be victorious.”

“You’re on,” Jesse says, holding his glass up in toast again, before finishing the remains. Hanzo does the same, and when he places his glass on the table, Jesse catches his attention when he clears his throat. “Another? Or do you want something else?”

Hanzo cannot help but smirk. “Thinking about it, tap beer seems like a good choice after this.”

“Nuh-uh, I ain’t gonna let you succumb to their ways. Not when I found myself a worthy drinking partner.” Jesse stands, picking up Hanzo’s glass. “We gotta stick together, you and I.” He winks. “Be right back, Han, another scotch comin’ right up.”

Hanzo watches him walk away, and he turns his head, feeling the warmth in his face. He might not have intended to make friends, but it seems he has found one in Jesse.

It is a shame it is unlikely to last, however. It’s only a matter of time before the bubble pops like it always does.


	22. "I know how you love to play games."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hana, Torbjorn and Brigitte
> 
> MekaMechanic

Hana sits inside her mech, focus shifting between the tablet which has a list of commands and the console, trying to figure out why it won’t activate. She tries a new command, which the mech seemingly accepts with no issues, which is promising than the fifty at least she’s tried already which were rejected.

“Okay, this’ll work, I know it will,” she murmurs, initiating the starting sequence, but instead of the mech booting up, sparks explode from the console and the tablet switches off. “Come on, girl, I need you to work with me,” she says, hanging her head low. She closes her eyes, lets the wave of frustration and anger come and go. Working on the mech when she’s got a hot head won’t do her any favours, but when it passes, all that’s left is bitter disappointment.

She’s been working on her mech for who-knows-how-long, and the mech must have been more damaged than she previously thought; she’s never had this much trouble with the operating system before. When she feels the prickle of tears behind her eyes, she takes a breath and holds it, tears are possibly worse than the anger and frustration, and she’s not about to let this defeat her.

She’s stronger than that.

“Don’t tell me you’ve been here all night?”

Hana opens her eyes, sees Torbjörn standing in front of the mech, arms folded, scowling like usual. “All night? What time is it?”

“Six thirty-two.”

“Then yep,” she murmurs, turning her attention to the tablet and rebooting it as she disconnects it from the mech. It’s no wonder she was on the verge of tears, she’s been in the mech for eight hours straight. “All night.”

“I left you here, in your mech, at eleven last night, and you said you would be ten minutes.”

“I know,” Hana says, frustration creeping up again as she climbs out of the mech, stretching her aching back muscles the second her feet are on the floor. “I thought it would take ten minutes.” She walks around, placing the tablet on the workbench, glancing at Torbjörn when he won’t take his eyes off her. “I’m not going to apologise for it.”

“And are you in a better place now than when you were at eleven?”

Hana opens her mouth to retort, but snaps her mouth shut instead. “No,” she says, looking away.

“Working when you are tired and hungry won’t do you any favours.”

“But—”

“Your diet of chips and soft drink is not sustainable,  _especially_ when you are working.”

“It’s worked for me in the past.”

“Back when you were a rising star, when you had to cook your own meals. You’re not that  _girl_ anymore.”

“No,” Hana says, defiant as she looks back at him. “I’m  _not_  that girl who saved my city time and time again. I’m an agent of Overwatch, protecting the world.”

“That’s right. And you can’t sit down here, alone, working on your mech through the night on no sleep or food. What if we were called on an emergency mission right now?”

“I’d be useless because my mech is out of action.”

“You can function without your mech, can you not? I’ve seen you in the training range, your aim is impressive for someone who is only twenty.”

“I…” Hana takes a shuddering breath, realising what Torbjörn is saying. If they were called on an emergency mission right this second, she would be twenty-four hours without sleep, no food in her system, and she would be absolutely useless. She’s sure she could get some sleep and food no matter where they were headed, so it wouldn’t be worst case scenario, but she’s not about to argue that point. “It won’t happen again,” she says quietly.

“Oh, I’m sure it will,” Torbjörn chuckles, approaching his workbench. “But you have to realise what your limit is, know when you should call it quits. Take a break, at the very least.”

“Yeah,” Hana murmurs, taking a seat opposite Torbjörn and rubbing her eyes so hard she sees stars. “It’s always been a problem. I had friends who would say the same thing.” She thinks about Dae-hyun, wonders what he’s been up to and makes a mental note to message him when she’s slept and had something to eat. “They’d pester me, all the time, telling me I should take breaks, not work through the night.” She huffs a laugh. “Knowing when to ask for help.” She looks at Torbjörn and smiles. “Don’t suppose you know anyone who can help with the operating system issues?”

“Brigitte would be your best bet,” he says, tinkering with something that looks like a mechanical spider. “She has an interest in operating systems behind mechanics.”

“I didn’t even think of Brigitte,” Hana says, unable to hide her widening smile. “I’ll have to ask her.”

“She’s been dying to get a look at your mech, I’m surprised you haven’t shown her yet.”

“She didn’t ask.”

“Now that is a surprise.” Torbjörn looks up at her, practically scowling again. “I know how you love to play games.”

Hana frowns. “Games? Like Starcraft? What’s that got to do with this?”

“Not video games. Games. Preying on the sleeping.” Torbjörn smirks. “This ringing any bells?”

Hana feels a stab of anxiety in her chest when she realises exactly  _what_  he is talking about. “You were awake!”

“Of course I was! Not only were you talking loud, but those things also itched against my skin.”

“Brigitte said she’d be able to tell when you were awake!”

“I’ve been pretend sleeping since she was little. Kids love waking up their parents, after all.” He chuckles. “I must be good if she couldn’t tell.”

“So you heard… everything.” Hana looks at him, trying to hide her anxiety.

“Everything. Saw her take your hand, too, when you thought I was going to wake. Saw the look on your face when you took that picture of her.”

Hana’s world crashes in a little at that. “I…”

“She likes you,” Torbjörn says quietly. “And I know you like her.”

Hana groans when she realises that she’s about to get ‘the talk’. “Am I that obvious?”

“You went from almost asleep to wide awake at the mention of her name.” Torbjörn looks at her with surprisingly soft features. “If I am being honest, you two are perfect for each other. You work well together, you play well together. She has been holding back on saying something, ever since you said you weren’t looking for a relationship.”

“Oh! No… I meant that in terms of something with Lúcio. He’s… we’re… he’s not interested in me—” She stops, huffs, realising she is rambling, before burying her face in her hands. “I’m such an idiot.”

“You’re not.”

“I made her feel bad.”

“You didn’t.”

“You’re not helping.”

“I’m not?”

Hana gives him a moment, and when he doesn’t continue, she looks up at him.

“It’s been two weeks since that night. All that’s happened since then is the pining, yes?” He pauses, and when Hana realises he actually wants an answer, she nods. “So you can sit here, pine a little longer, or you can  _do_ something about it.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” Torbjörn says, like it was the world’s stupidest question to ask. “She’s in the mess hall, tell her how you feel.”

Hana can’t help but smile. “Thank you.”

“Not a problem,” Torbjörn replies. “You’re a good girl. Someone I would be proud to date my Brigitte.”

“Stop,” Hana says, standing up.

“Wouldn’t mind you as a daughter-in-law either.”

“ _Stop!_ ” Hana practically races out of the workshop, stopping in the threshold of the door before turning around. “Thank you, Torbjörn.”

“You’re welcome. Tell her how you feel, have something to eat and get some sleep. You’re not allowed back in here until you have done those things.”

“Yes,  _dad_.” Hana runs now, before Torbjörn can say anything else embarrassing, not that it’s likely given she can hear his booming laughter down the corridor. She heads straight for the mess hall, bursts through the doors and is incredibly thankful that Brigitte is the only one in the room.

“Hana,” Brigitte says with a smile, turning into concern when Hana approaches her. “Is everything—” whatever Brigitte was going to say dies in her throat, why would Hana tell her how she feels when she can show her, by sitting next to her, cupping her face and kissing her.

“Wow,” Brigitte says when Hana pulls away, grinning. “Good morning to you, too.”

Hana can’t help but giggle, hiding her face, and only looking back at her when Brigitte cups her cheek. “Good morning,” she says.

“What brought this on?”

Hana can’t help but grin. “Well, I had an interesting talk with your dad…”


	23. "This is not new, it only feels like it."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hanzo and Genji
> 
> Mentions of alcohol and drinking.
> 
> Part four of the McHanzo story.

“You were quiet tonight.”

Hanzo looks to his left as Genji sits next to him, legs dangling off the cliff’s edge in a mirror to him. He offers Genji the sake gourd, and Genji takes it, has a sip before handing it back.

“You seemed to enjoy it, though.”

Hanzo cannot help but smile, the evening was enjoyable if he is being honest. It was after a successful mission, made even better with the fact they managed to protect the American consul general from an attack by Talon. The team went out for drinks like they always do, it was Hanzo’s first time out with them, and he spent that time doing exactly what he and Jesse discussed weeks ago: sitting in a booth, drinking scotch, judging the others for switching to beer, laughing when they hijacked the jukebox and started an impromptu karaoke session, and slinking into another booth when they came back clearly intoxicated. He understands now why Jesse does not drink very much on these nights, not only is he avoiding the hangover the following morning, but the team is so inebriated it is like minding toddlers, and  _someone_ has to keep an eye on them.

Jesse offered to continue the night, once they were back on base, sharing a bottle of bourbon. He said he was going to drink it anyway and did not mind the company, and Hanzo  _almost_ said yes, before that voice in his head told him he should not get close. Hanzo politely refused and came out here, for the fresh air, to drink alone, and hopefully put that voice back in its box, lock it up tight and hopefully never hear it again.

He has been with Overwatch for over four months now, and so far, no one has shown any inkling of turning on him.

“And you’re silent now,” Genji sighs. “What happened? What did McCree do?”

“Nothing happened, he did not do anything,” Hanzo replies, looking at the gourd. “And that is the problem.”

“You… Want him to do something?” Genji looks at him, smirk teasing his lips. “Hanzo, do you have a crush?”

“No!” Hanzo winces; that came out too fast, with too much denial, and he looks away from Genji when his smirk only widens. “That is not what I meant!”

“What do you mean, then?”

“Why do they act as if I have not wronged you? Why do they not treat me as their friend’s murderer?” Hanzo huffs; when he says it out loud it sounds ridiculous.

“You’re seriously wondering why they are being nice to you?” Genji says flatly.

“I am not deserving of their kindness,” Hanzo murmurs, looking at Genji.

“Hanzo—” Genji starts, frustration heavy on his tone, before pinching the bridge of his nose. “Look. They won’t treat you badly for what you did.”

“Why?”

“They just won’t, okay?”

“That is not enough,” Hanzo mutters, taking a good gulp of the sake.

“Fine,” Genji says, turning to face Hanzo, sitting cross-legged and resting his hands in his lap. “Before I sought you out, I told everyone here. Didn’t ask, didn’t want their permission,  _told_  them what I was doing. Questions were asked, I got asked ‘are you sure?’ more times than I could count, but I was sure. And do you want to know what I told them? ‘Trust me’.”

“And they did?”

“Yep, no one questioned me after that. They were supportive, actually.”

“Even McCree? You said he was your friend in Blackwatch.”

“Even Jesse. He’s got this… outlook, I guess, on life. He gives everyone the benefit of the doubt, let’s them have their second chance. He wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t offered one.” Genji smiles softly. “Jesse, out of everyone, knows what it’s like to come from a bad place, turn a life of crime and death into something good. He gets it, Hanzo. If you’re worried that he is going to turn on you if you get close, you have nothing to worry about. Out of everyone I told about you, he was the  _most_ supportive.”

Hanzo cannot help but smile, as he feels a weight lift off his shoulders. No one here will shut him out. Jesse will not shut him out.

“I want to talk about this though,” Genji says, and when Hanzo looks at him, his smirk widens. “How long?”

“It is nothing.”

“It is not nothing! No one denies a crush as hard as you did if they  _didn’t_ have a crush.”

Hanzo takes a breath and holds it, and he cannot believe he is going to actually talk to Genji about this. “It is embarrassing,” he says quietly, like it is a secret.

“One, it’s not embarrassing,” Genji says, surprisingly neutral. Hanzo was expecting taunting at the very least. “Two, he enjoys your company. A  _lot_ , if you get what I’m saying.”

Now Hanzo cannot contain the smile. “He is charming and funny and a good talker, a great listener, and—” Hanzo glances at Genji, then looks away, distracting himself with the gourd because he has barely admitted these feeling to himself, and he is not sure if he is ready to even say it aloud. “It is all so childish,” he says after a moment.

“You were not about to say that,” Genji says flatly. “Let me guess, you were going to say he is handsome.”

Hanzo’s eyes snap to meet Genji’s, and he curses his brother’s ability to read him like an open book. He doesn’t say it aloud, though, just nods.

“I mean, we’ve  _all_ seen him. You won’t be the first, you certainly won’t be the last.” Genji smiles. “What you’re feeling, though… he hasn’t outright said it to me, but I have known him long enough to know that through his actions and the way he speaks to you, about you when you are not there… he is interested in you. Whether friendship or more, I do not know for certain, but he has definitely taken to you.”

“Friendship…” Hanzo murmurs, frowning. What if Jesse is not interested in something more? And that self-doubting voice returns. “Trust me to fall for the first person to show me true kindness in ten years,” he says bitterly.

“It is not unheard of,” Genji replies, holding his hand out, and Hanzo hands him the gourd. “We’re friends because he reached out in the early days. If I was in a better place…” he smiles wistfully, just for a moment, before looking at Hanzo again. “I do know that he has not been this excited or this friendly to someone in a long time. So take that how you will.”

“I just…” Hanzo takes a deep, shuddering breath, and decides to unpack this on Genji’s lap, because maybe, just maybe if he says it aloud, it will be enough to quieten the voice in his head. “I do not know if it is because it is the first genuine act of kindness, or regard to my wellbeing, but I have feelings for him, more than a friend should and it is terrifying and exciting and new… I have never experienced anything like this.”  

“This is not new, it only feels like it.”

“Well… The first time in ten years new,” Hanzo says, smirking. He thought he felt lighter before, now he feels like he could float on a cloud. “Should I pursue it?”

“Absolutely,” Genji says with zero hesitation. “The cowman needs someone in his life.”

Hanzo snorts. “‘Cowman’?”

“Silly nickname. He hates it.” Genji’s smile softens. “In all honesty, he is probably as broken as you are. He rarely sleeps, he has nightmares, still has them, as far as I know, but takes things day by day, does his best for everyone. It would be good if he had someone to lean on whose name wasn’t Jack or Jim.”

Hanzo has a silent chuckle at that. Oh, how he knows what it is like when the only thing he can turn to is alcohol. He looks at the gourd in Genji’s hands, takes it when he offers it back and caps it. “A kindred spirit.”

“You two have a lot in common when you really think about it.” Genji reaches out, places a hand on Hanzo’s shoulder. “Thank you for sharing this with me, though. I could see you deliberating with yourself.”

“I needed to say it out loud for it to make sense in my mind… Thank you for listening.”

“Any time, I am always here,” Genji says, then punches Hanzo lightly in the arm before standing. “When do you think you will make a move?”

Hanzo looks at Genji, then at the sea below. “I do not know…”

“There is no rush, don’t feel like you need to find him now and tell him.”

“Well, I wasn’t going to do  _that_.”

“Because I am going to find him now and see if he is up for a chat,” Genji says, and Hanzo opens his mouth to object when Genji holds up his hand, stopping him. “Don’t worry, I know what was said was in confidence. I will not tell him anything.”

“For once,” Hanzo mumbles. Genji would always talk to his crushes in their youth and tell them.

“I am more mature now,” he says, pressing a hand to his chest. “Sit on your feelings, see where they take you.”

Hanzo nods. “I will.”

“Good night, Hanzo,” Genji says, patting his head.

“Good night,” Hanzo replies, waving his arm to bat Genji’s hand away. Genji gets the hint, with a final nod he turns and heads inside, and only when he disappears through the door does Hanzo look back at the sea below, and really start thinking about his feelings.

The more he thinks about developing their friendship, about turning it into something more, the giddier he feels. It will take some time, it is something he wants to develop slowly, but the next time Jesse asks to continue their night, he will not turn it down. 


	24. “You know this, you know this to be true.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lúcio, Hana, Brigitte, Genji, Reinhardt, Lena
> 
> MekaMechanic, pre-Gencio--Lúcio's in love and pining hard!
> 
> Credit to robo-cryptid for helping with this prompt.

“Titanic?”

“Boring,” Hana sing-songs.

“The Sixth Sense?”

“No horror!” Brigitte yells.

A smile spreads on Lúcio’s lips. “Jurassic Park.” He looks at the both of them. “Can’t go wrong with dinosaurs.”

Hana’s head whips around so fast, it’s a miracle she doesn’t end up with whiplash. “Yes! It’s so good!”

“I guess,” Genji replies offhandedly, picking at the bowl of popcorn, before looking at Brigitte. “Up to you.”

“Well, I haven’t seen it,” Brigitte says, thoughtfully, before looking at Hana. “And you’re sure it isn’t scary?”

“No way! It’s got dinosaurs. Please!” Hana pleads.

Brigitte smiles. “All right, then.”

“Yes!” Hana exclaims, then looks at Lúcio. “Put it on!”

Lúcio nods, selecting the movie from Athena’s database. They found the old folder containing movies grouped by the decade of their release, and are making their way from the earliest, where Jesse gets all his western movies from which they skipped because they have seen those movies enough for three lifetimes, right through to today’s modern offerings. The 1990s, for whatever reason, is the one the most of them have seen movies from, making picking one a bit more of a task than normal, and making Jurassic Park the first movie they have watched so far where most of them have seen it, bending their rule of only watching movies no one has seen.

And honestly, Jurassic Park is just one of those movies everyone should see more than once in their life.

Lúcio starts the movie and settles into the couch beside Genji and grabbing a handful of popcorn from the bowl in Genji’s lap. He notices Brigitte and Hana getting comfortable on the opposite couch, looking rather cosy under the blanket they’re sharing, and he can’t help but smile.

“Oh gosh!” Brigitte exclaims, covering her eyes with her hands, and when Lúcio looks at the TV, he just nods; it is the scene when the technician is pulled into the cage by the velociraptor.

“It’s okay,” Hana says, draping an arm over Brigitte’s shoulders and pulling her in close. “It’s not that bad.” She looks at Lúcio, covers her mouth with her hand in an attempt to stifle her laughter.

“Some girlfriend she is,” Genji murmurs.

“She’s comforting her, it’s cute.” Lúcio’s stomach flutters a little, as he looks from Genji back to the movie. Oh, how he wants that, someone to comfort, someone to cuddle up to—or someone to cuddle up to  _him_. Genji, preferably, because Lúcio has a small crush on him. He’s been thinking about making a move, asking Genji out over the last couple of weeks, but Lúcio’s partly afraid of getting ‘the talk’ from Hanzo, and another small part of Lúcio is worried that he’s misinterpreting the signals, considering Genji pretty much flirts with anything that moves.  

So he swallows that down, because he is not about to make a move in this room and face rejection in front of an audience, and focuses on the movie instead. As the movie goes on, everyone hums the theme song when it’s played—and when Lúcio says everyone, he  _means_ everyone, with Lena, Jesse and Reinhardt popping their heads in at various points and humming along with it. Lena and Reinhardt stay, while Jesse excuses himself, two cups of hot cocoa he made in his hands.

Brigitte seems to be handling it okay so far, Lúcio guesses the initial shock of the opener set the mood, and aside from the odd jump scare, gasp, or quiet murmur to Hana, she seems to be enjoying it.

In fact, everyone is enjoying it.

That is, until that open-shirt scene with Jeff Goldblum comes on.

“Shit, he’s hot,” Hana says, earning her a giggle from Brigitte.

“Yeah, he kind of is,” Brigitte replies, barely audible over the sound of the movie. “I’m glad he’s okay though!”

“Okay, no,” Genji says, somewhat disapproving, but with that little hint of amusement in his voice that Lúcio’s picked up on when he shit-stirs. “Nobody was ever attracted to Jeff Goldblum, that’s stupid!”

“Speak for yourself!” Reinhardt says, voice booming over the movie. “This scene is a classic moment in cinema history!”

“Yeah dude,” Lúcio adds, looking at Genji, “he’s hot.”

“No, he isn’t,” Genji retorts immediately, looking at Lúcio.

Lúcio smirks; Genji’s definitely committed to this. “He is.”

“No!”

“You know this, you know this to be true!”

“Sorry Genji,” Lena says, “you’re wrong. Even  _I’m_ a little attracted to the man.”

“Then you all have shit taste,” Genji says, plucking popcorn from the bowl and tossing it at Lena. It lands on her lap, she picks it up, pops it in her mouth and winks.

Lúcio glances at Genji again, sees the little smirk on his lips that he tries to hide it behind his glass as he takes a sip, and Lúcio’s mostly sure he was just having a go at them.

Everyone is quiet after that. Brigitte watches the entire kitchen scene through her fingers, Hana holding her close throughout the entire sequence, and she and claps when it’s done.

“That was so good,” Brigitte says, turning to face them. “When can we watch the rest of them?”

“If it weren’t for the mission in the morning, I’d suggest the second one now,” Lúcio sighs. “I know most of you are on it and you should probably sleep.”

“That’s a good point,” Lena says, standing up and stretching her arms over her head. “We put on the next one, it’ll finish at one a.m. and we have to be out first thing–seven a.m. sharp.”

“And I’m sure I don’t need to lecture you all on why you need a full night’s sleep,” Lúcio says, turning off the TV.

“No,” Genji groans, standing up and holding the empty popcorn bowl. “We’re expected to be back in three days, we can do part two the night we get back.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Brigitte says, standing up and helping Hana to stand. “Thanks for the movie, it was enjoyable and scary, but mostly enjoyable!”

“Any time,” Lúcio replies. “Good night!”

“Thanks, Lúc,” Lena says, yawning. “Sleep well.”

“You too.”

“Good night,” Reinhardt says, patting both Genji and Lúcio on the shoulder.

“Night, Rein.” Lúcio turns to Genji when they’re alone in the room.

“Good movie choice,” Genji murmurs, looking at the tablet. “And we’ll have a whole heap of them to keep us entertained for the next couple of weeks.”

“Sure will,” Lúcio says, giving the room a quick once-over before following Genji out and turning off the lights. He helps Genji with the dishes, tries to muster up the courage to say something, anything to turn his thoughts into actual words, to tell Genji that he enjoys his company, that he wants to spend some time with him in a relaxed setting listening to music and cuddling and kissing… But he just can’t.

“I’d love to stay up,” Genji says, and Lúcio looks at him, startled, hoping he wasn’t just ignoring him. “But I’m on that mission tomorrow morning too and I should sleep.”

“I know,” Lúcio breathes, mentally kicking himself for not saying anything. After the mission, he tells himself, he will talk to Genji after the mission. “Walk you to your room? It’s on the way to mine.”

Genji smiles, and Lúcio can’t help but smile back. “Sure,” he says, nodding.

They walk in silence, much to Lúcio’s mild annoyance with himself, considering he is struggling to find anything to talk about. He thinks over the events of tonight, going over in his head what he would do differently. Maybe he’d take Genji’s hand, lean into him a bit more, seeing if he would take the bait, talking about his beef with Jeff Goldblum—

“Hey, you were joking about the Goldblum scene, right?” Lúcio asks.

“You really wanna know the truth?” Genji replies, stopping, and Lúcio nods eagerly. He leans in, close to Lúcio’s ear, and Lúcio holds his breath. “I had  _that_ picture from that scene in a notebook when I was a kid,” he whispers, before pulling away, smirking.

Lúcio looks into Genji’s eyes, breathless, drawn in to kiss him, but he comes to his senses, blinking back the stupor and swallowing the lump in his throat. “I knew you were joking.”

“Seriously, find me someone who  _doesn’t_ think he’s hot,” he says, looking at the door he’s standing in front of. “Anyway, this is me.”

“It is,” Lúcio breathes.

Genji looks at him, his smile softening. “Well… Good night.”

“'Night,” Lúcio replies, taking a step, then another, and for every step he takes, he hates it more and more.

When Genji gets back, he will tell him how he feels. He promises himself that at the very least.


	25. “Go forward, do not stray.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Genji and Zenyatta
> 
> Credit to sharpestofsnooter for helping with the Zen dialogue

Genji sits in front of Gosaikunda lake. It is quiet, tranquil, and there is not another living soul anywhere, because no one in their right mind is outside given how cold it is.

And that is the problem; Genji cannot feel the cold thanks to his cybernetic thermoregulation. He has a chip in his head that tells the cybernetic part of him to generate heat, and thus, he can withstand alpine temperatures. 

He could sit out here, in the freezing cold for days if he wanted, and he would not feel it.

 _It makes you the perfect weapon to stake out and infiltrate locations in the coldest climates on Earth_ , Reyes had said. Overwatch—Blackwatch made him a living weapon. He was offered the ultimatum:  _help us and you’ll get your body back, refuse and stay hooked up to life support for the rest of your life._ How could he say no to that? Forever lose the ability to walk? He could not bear the thought.

If only he could come to terms with what he has become.

Not a human, not an omnic, yet rejected by both groups. The isolation is the worst, even though he is used to it now. Overwatch saw him as a weapon. Angela saw him as her patient. Jesse… Probably the only one who saw him as him, as the  _thing_  at war with himself, who gave him the time of day, who listened to every complaint, who helped him through the pain, the nightmares. If he is being honest, if it were not for Jesse, he knows he would not be here, now, sitting in front of this frozen lake.

He sighs through his nose, watching his breath form a cloud in front of him. At least he has that, physical breath, the ability to see it, proof that he has  _real_  lungs, even though they are not his original. A part of him which is still human.

The rest of him though… He looks at his gloved hands, knowing his left is flesh and blood, his right is cybernetic, and he is disgusted by his right. He keeps it gloved at all times, hides it from the world, along with his legs, his chest and every other single part of him which is cybernetic.

He is thankful, though, so incredibly thankful that Angela at least picked up on his self-loathing before he left Overwatch and offered to fix his ocular implants so they resembled something human: black pupils instead of red, and brown irises like he used to have. They still have a reddish tinge to them—or amber as she called it—but said that given the cyberization, they would always be like that, no matter what colour he chose.

It is a shame they just remind him of Hanzo’s eyes. Genji’s eyes were always darker, a little blacker, but now they are brown and look like Hanzo’s.

He huffs, closing his eyes and listening to the distant song of some bird. He focuses on that, pushing Hanzo well and truly out of his mind, burying him and everything of  _that_  life under the self-hatred. He will never get that life back, he will never get his brother back, and there is no point in wasting another moment’s thought on it.

When he opens his eyes, though, he settles on an omnic sitting on the other side of the lake. They hold up their hand in friendly greeting, and Genji merely nods. He studies the omnic’s clothing and realises it is that omnic he spilt his whole life story to during one of his vulnerable days.

The same omnic who will now not leave him alone.

Genji sighs when Zenyatta floats over, legs folded under himself in lotus. He does not float over the frozen lake, but around it on the banks, before settling next to Genji.

“Do you mind if I join you?”

“I don’t own this rock,” Genji retorts, and he is thankful that Zenyatta does not say anything after that, just lowers his head as the orbs around his neck start to float.

 _I don’t own this rock_. Genji looks away as the guilt of his words starts to eat away at him. Could he be any more of a dick? And to a monk no less.

“I’m sorry,” Genji murmurs. “You may join me.”

Zenyatta does not respond, just continues meditating, and Genji uses this time to reflect on his behaviour. He is travelling alone because he is self-destructive. He pushes everyone away because the one person who had his back inflicted this damage to him, and the other he trusted in the months after left him to work on his own demons. Not that he blames Jesse for leaving Blackwatch, Genji could see that whatever was happening with Gabe was eating away at him, and Jesse was Genji’s only other reason for staying once the clan was taken down.

Living in solitude, with the self-loathing and his self-destructive nature is much easier to handle than watching someone get close and then pushing them away. He did it to Zenyatta close to a month ago— _a month ago_.

He has been in Nepal for a month.

He has not been in one place longer than a week, and he has been in Nepal a month.

Glancing at Zenyatta, he wonders how he managed to stay here for so long without realising. Was his mind using Zenyatta as an anchor? Has self-preservation finally risen to the surface? Did Zenyatta pick up on it, which is why he has been following him around? Then he wonders why he himself has not left this bench. He wants solitude, and yet… having this company is… not repulsive.

“Is the offer still on the table?” Genji asks, without thought. Zenyatta offered to be spiritual guidance, to help him with his demons, to accept who he is now and Genji pushed him away. Every single time he asked.

And now,  _now_  that the words are out there, that Zenyatta definitely heard them because he did cock his head in response, he does not regret saying them.

“I sense a glimmer of hopefulness within you,” Zenyatta answers. The orbs settle back down, and he looks at Genji. “I can only offer my teachings, but you must walk your own path.”

“I’m tired. I…”  He turns, stares at the white surface of the lake, takes a breath and holds it. When it all boils down to it, he is tired of the isolation, of the self-loathing, of being repulsed by his own body. He thought he could live his life forever like this, and now that he has experienced it for close to a year, he is tired of it all. “I’m tired of everything. Being alone. Hating myself,” he murmurs, looking back at Zenyatta. “I used to enjoy life. The little things, like the snow, seeing the trees blossoming in Spring, watching the leaves fall in Autumn. Now, it is as if the light which was on in my mind is gone, and all that is left is the darkness. I want…” He takes a deep, shuddering breath, fighting the tide of sorrow and hope and fear all mixed into one and swallows it down. “I want the light back.”

“You seek to relight what has been extinguished,” Zenyatta says, and Genji nods. “The path to rediscovering your true self will not be easy, but fear not, it is a journey you will not have to face alone. The candle still resides within you, all it requires is the lighter.”  

Genji swallows the lump in his throat, letting Zenyatta’s words sink in. Could he really let go of that hatred, that self-loathing he carries within him? Could he enjoy the simple things again? Allow people back into his life? It seems like an impossible feat “Is it as simple as relighting a candle, though?”

“You cannot relight a candle absent a lighter, just like you cannot truly accept who you are without addressing the cause of your trepidation.”

“So you want me to face my brother,” he murmurs. Every single fantasy of exacting revenge he has had over the months flashes in his mind, and he pushes that away too, looking back at Zenyatta and huffing a laugh. “I fear if I saw him again, you would not approve of my actions.”

Zenyatta chuckles. “That is understandable, Genji. It is something we can address at a later stage, with time. Now, though, we must start small. We must find the match.” He holds out his hands, palms up. “Your hands.”

Genji looks at Zenyatta’s hands, then his own, slipping his thumb under the glove covering his cybernetic hand and hesitating. He has not let anyone see this hand since he left Overwatch six months ago, and taking the glove off in front of Zenyatta seems impossible. But, glancing back at Zenyatta, seeing that subtle nod, he knows he can trust him. He holds his breath as he peels off his gloves, and exhales slowly, laying his hands on top of Zenyatta’s.

“What do you see? And do not say hands.”

Genji cannot help but smile, this monk has a sense of humour. “Get that a lot?”

“You cannot imagine.” He gestures to their hands with the tilt of his head. “Now, tell me what you see.”

Genji looks at his flesh and blood hand first, analysing his fingers, his palm lines. He frowns, tearing his eyes away, forcing himself to look at his cybernetic hand, at the grey synthetic skin on his palm, the hinges where the joints in his fingers should be. How cold and sterile and cybernetic it is, and it takes a surprising amount of restraint not to take back his hands, put on his gloves and resign to the fact that he will never find this metaphorical lighter that Zenyatta talks about. But he takes a deep breath and looks between his hands because Zenyatta seems to genuinely want to help him. “I see a person conflicted. A person caught between flesh and blood and machine, not one or the other, but both. A person who does not belong anywhere.”

“We are all one within the Iris,” Zenyatta says. “We are all one, but we are all unique. Each with our own experiences, thoughts, memories. You say you do not belong anywhere, yet you are exactly where you need to be.”

“Where I need to be?”

“Call it coincidence, or fate, or luck, but our paths were meant to cross.”

Genji cannot help but smile. “Are you saying  _you_  are the lighter?”

“If you wish to walk the path of enlightenment, to let go of the discord which plagues you, I can walk that path with you. You may be cybernetic in body, but you are human in mind and soul, and these two parts of you are in conflict. I saw that the day we met, in the days that followed, and now, seeing your hands for the first time. This conflict is in front of you, a constant visual reminder, and you must first bridge the gap,” he pushes Genji’s hands together, “to find harmony within yourself.”

Genji looks at his joined hands, at Zenyatta’s hands clasping his, and thinks about reaching a point where he can find harmony and be at peace with himself, where he can look in the mirror and see  _himself_ , not the thing he is now, and the very thought makes him smile. “Yes, I want that.”

“Very well,” Zenyatta says, pulling his hands away and resting them on his knees. “I am pleased you wish to find inner peace, Genji. I can see the disquiet in your soul and can see how much pain it brings you.”

“Yeah,” Genji chuckles, resting his hands in his lap. “It has been a rough ride, and I am ready to get off.”

“Go forward, do not stray,” Zenyatta says, and Genji can hear a hint of amusement in his voice. “Are you still planning on travelling, or have you settled here?”

“It was never my intention to stay here,” Genji says. “But I can if that is easier for you. I have nowhere else to be.”

“I am taking a leave of absence from the monastery, so I am no longer tied here.” Zenyatta looks at the lake. “We can start our journey here and see where the wind takes us.”

“I would like that,” Genji breathes, glancing at the lake. He cannot help but smile, for the first time in months, he feels like his outlook on life just got a bit more positive.


	26. “But if you cannot see it, is it really there?”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Satya and Hanzo

There was a level of tranquillity Satya felt walking the quiet corridors of the watchpoint. The base, in its heyday, must have had hundreds, if not thousands, within its walls. Yet today, it only houses fifteen.

It is not particularly late, only ten p.m, but it is quieter than normal. There are no telltale pops or bangs from the training range, no conversation or laughter from the recreation room, and no sound of movement from the mess hall.

But even though it is tranquil, Satya is craving the familiar feeling of having people nearby. The watchpoint is too large, too quiet, and she feels alone.

Entering the kitchen, when her eyes settle on Hanzo in front of the stove, she has to restrain herself from running up to him, to stand next to him to put her mind at ease that she is, in fact, not alone. But before she even takes another step, Hanzo looks over his shoulder and smiles before giving her his full attention.

“Ms. Vaswani.”

“Shimada-san.”

“Hanzo, please,” he says, smiling.

Satya smirks. “When you call me Satya.”

Hanzo bows his head. “Satya.” He stands to his side, eyes flitting to the kettle on the stove. “I am about to prepare some jasmine tea, would you like to join me?”

“That would be lovely. If I am not imposing, of course.”

“Of course not,” Hanzo says turning back to the stove and turning off the heat. “I have been meaning to talk to you, actually.”

“Oh?”

“Just wondering how you are settling in.” He grabs the kettle, pouring the water over the already prepared tea in the teapot. “Usually we do not send people on missions the week they arrive.”

“Well when the mission involves my ex-employers,” she sighs, grabbing her mug from the cupboard before following Hanzo out of the kitchen and to one of the tables. She reached out to Overwatch in the first instance, when she discovered Vishkar was getting a significant amount of their funds from Talon, and obtaining the last of the information Overwatch required from the central hub was not only physically difficult because they encountered resistance, but morally difficult. “But at least it was a success.”

“Very much so,” Hanzo says. “We now have a list of Vishkar employees on Talon’s payroll, which will be a considerable blow to both organisations.”

“Indeed.”

“But that is not what I wanted to talk to you about. How are you finding Overwatch?”

“It…” It is definitely not what she expected. Fifteen people? Given the damage Overwatch was doing to Vishkar, to Talon prior to her defecting, she would have sworn there would have been fifty at least. “You are resourceful.”

“We have our ways,” he says with a chuckle. “And having an architect only increases our resource pool.”

 _That_ surprises Satya. She was there in the final stage of the mission, where Hanzo used his hard-light dragons. She thought he was an architect, and an advanced one at that, to make them look real, feel real,  _sound_ real. “Are you not an architect?”

Hanzo smiles. “No. While I did create the hard-light section of the training range, I have no formal training in the use of hard-light technologies.”

“That is impressive for someone without training,” Satya says with approval. The training range was another piece of evidence that she believed attributed Hanzo to being an architect. “If you do not mind me asking…” she waits until Hanzo has poured the tea into the mugs and sets the teapot onto the table. “The dragons you summoned. Are they not hard-light?”

“Ah.” Hanzo sits up in his seat, clasping his hands together on the table. “Do you know of my past?”

The first thing Satya did when she was alone was read everyone’s biographies. There wasn’t much available for someone in a probation period short of their name, place of birth and a small bio, but it didn’t take much to search for everyone online and find out what she needed from there. What she learned about Hanzo was… interesting, to say the least. “You are Shimada Hanzo, former leader of the Shimada-gumi.”

“Yes,” Hanzo murmurs. “My clan was centuries old, and my ancestors made a pact with dragon kami. We are their vessels.”

Satya narrows her eyes. “As in… it inhabits your body?”

“To a degree, yes.”

“Can you see it?”

“No.”

“But if you cannot see it, is it really there?”

Hanzo chuckles to himself. “You are not the first to question  _them_.”

“Them, my apologies.”

“Not at all,” he says with the wave of his hand before picking up his mug. “You are an architect, you have the means to create anything hard-light, yet now, as I look at you, there is nothing here to imply you are indeed an architect. So I ask you: if you cannot see it, is it really there?”

Satya cannot help but smile. She steeples her fingers before pulling her fingers apart slowly, creating the hard-light canvass. “Hard-light is a technology, light which can be manipulated to create whatever I want. There is science, theory behind it.” She balls her hands into fists and the canvass disappears. “What you mean to tell me is, you have a dragon spirit within you?”

“Two,” he says, matter of fact. She studies his face, looking for a tell that this is a joke, because being a vessel to dragon spirits is simply preposterous. Where is the evidence of such things? The reports, papers, studies conducted that a presumably single family line in Japan dating back centuries have the ability to house dragons within their bodies? But Hanzo looks back, deadly serious, unblinking, unflinching. “You may ask Genji, he will say the same thing.”

“You are being serious,” she murmurs.

“I would not joke about such matters,” he says, smiling before taking a sip of tea.

“No, I suppose you would not joke about your faith.” She inhales and exhales deeply, looking into her tea and taking on a softer approach, knowing he is indeed a man of faith. “Can you feel them?”

“Often, yes. Depending on my mood, they react to my emotions, and I am in tune with theirs.”

“Can you sense things before they happen, then?”

“Only danger, in a similar manner to how animals may react to a threat.”

“That is quite resourceful,” she murmurs, letting this information sink in. It makes sense; Hanzo knew first, well before any of them, well before anyone  _should_ know, that they were about to be ambushed. “What do they feel like?”

“It can feel like they are scratching under my skin when I am annoyed. They thrash when I am angry, writhe when I am upset.” He pauses, looks off in the distance and smiles, just for a brief moment before meeting her gaze again. “When there is a danger, I respond physically to it. I get a surge of adrenaline and my senses are heightened.”

“Resourceful indeed,” she says, taking a sip of tea. “Can you summon them at any time?”

“Any time, yes, but sparingly. The energy expenditure required to summon them is immense.” He smiles, almost sheepishly. “I get my best sleep after using them.”

“I can imagine,” she replies, taking a modest sip of tea. “Could you summon them here one day? I would like to see them when not in the middle of an emergency evacuation.”

Hanzo takes a breath, holding it and smiling. “One day.”

“I look forward to it,” she replies, looking at the remnants of her tea and drinking the lot. “I have enjoyed this discussion.”

“As have I. But how are you settling in, being in close proximity to everyone who lives on base?”

“I find the evenings are my favourite time, when there is no one around. When it is quiet, still. When there is no chaos.”

“The younger ones can certainly be chaotic,” Hanzo says with a chuckle.

“And undisciplined.”

“I sense a kindred spirit.”

Satya cannot help but smile. “It is good to find someone like-minded,” she murmurs, before looking into her empty cup. “Sometimes, though, the silence is too much. Tonight, for example…”

“It is something that takes some getting used to,” Hanzo says, “but if at any time you are looking for company, please do not hesitate to seek me out.”

Satya smiles, nodding. “Thank you for this discussion,” she stands, “it has been enlightening.”

“You are very welcome. I am pleased that you are settling in well.”

“Enjoy your evening, Hanzo.”

“Satya.”

Satya cleans her mug, placing it back in the cupboard before leaving the room. Walking the quiet corridors now, with Hanzo’s offer on the table, she doesn’t feel alone anymore.


	27. “Remember, you have to remember.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hanzo, Jesse and Fareeha (cameo)
> 
> Mentions of alcohol, brief discussion of past injuries

Hanzo stands in the garage, waiting for Jesse. He is a little giddy, a little nervous because this is the first time he has to truly be alone with him in weeks. With significant downtime, they have  _all_ been on base, and it seems no matter when Hanzo would want to spend time with Jesse, someone would be there. It took the weekly grocery run to make it happen—something that happens on rotation and today just happens to be their allocated day.

The doors open, and he hears Jesse before he sees him, listing off grocery items. He appears from around the corner with Fareeha by his side, makes eye contact with Hanzo, nodding his head in greeting before looking back at his phone. “That everything?”

“Should be,” Fareeha says, looking at Hanzo and smiling. “Good afternoon, Hanzo.”

“Good afternoon.” A pang of dread pools in his stomach, but he ignores it, smiling back at her. “Will you be joining us today?”

“No,” she chuckles. “I’m here for such a short time, I’m not going to waste that on errands.”

Hanzo breathes a mental sigh of relief. “Of course.” He looks at Jesse, eyes flitting down to the phone in his hand. “Are we ready to go?”

“Yup,” he says, stuffing his phone in his pocket. “Be back soon,” he says to Fareeha, nudging her in the elbow with his before walking around the drivers’ side of the car.

“Remember, you have to remember!” Fareeha says teasingly, winking, and Hanzo frowns, looking at Jesse when he sits in the car. He does not say anything, aside from an exasperated huff. 

“Remember… What, exactly?”

“Ain’t nothin’,” Jesse mutters, pressing his thumb to the keypad, starting the car.

His frown deepening, he looks out the window to Fareeha, she smirks, gives a little wave of her fingers and Hanzo holds up his hand as the car pulls away.

“So!” Jesse starts, smiling when Hanzo makes eye contact. “Officially out of your probationary period.”

“Yes, though it was barely a probationary period.”

“Just means you followed and respected the rules of the house,” Jesse says. “But not only that, you’ve pulled your weight around base, helped with getting it into some semblance of habitable, you cook dinner, do grocery runs without any complaint or hesitation. You fit in well, and you are a valuable addition to the team.”

“Thank you,” Hanzo says, trying to hide his bashfulness at the compliment, even though he is unsure as to why he is bashful about it. “It would not have been in my best interest to go against Winston’s wishes, anyway.” His best interest, and by extension, Genji’s best interest.

“Gotta say though,” Jesse says, glancing at Hanzo and smirking, “never in a million years woulda thought we’d not only have one ex-yakuza, but two, with one of ‘em being the former leader of the clan working with us.”

“Just like I never thought I would be working alongside someone with a sixty million dollar bounty on their head.”

Jesse chuckles, glancing at Hanzo. “You know about that, huh?”

“Hard not to when you were always present on the list.”

“Always present…?” Jesse looks at Hanzo and scoffs. “ _That’s_ what you were doing before this!”

“I am surprised you were not aware. Genji knew.”

“Didn’t say a word. And ah, thanks, for not trying to hunt me down.”

“Someone with a bounty that high is very clearly dangerous.” He glances at Jesse and smirks. “I did not have a deathwish.”

“Naw, reckon you coulda taken me out had you used your bow. I can imagine it now, me goin’ about my business, not a care in the world till I cop an arrow to the knee or something so I can’t escape. Wouldn’t know where you were till you dropped down from some building, or climbed in through a window, or something equally impressive.”

“I refuse to believe you are not aware of your surroundings at all times,” Hanzo replies. “And I am sure you have had countless people trying to claim the bounty.”

“Countless is right,” Jesse breathes. “Got just as many scars from those who got close.” He reveals his left forearm, and Hanzo studies his arm, the myriad of scars on his skin. Some are small, long faded and barely noticeable, while others are longer, deeper, old, but recent enough that they do contrast against his tanned skin. “That scar, right up near my elbow?” Hanzo looks at that one, it is older, and when the car bounces, he takes hold of Jesse’s arm, holding it in place and analysing the small dots on either side of it. He was stitched up haphazardly; clearly not done by a professional. “That was a close call. Closer anyone got to ending me.”

“You stitched this up yourself?”

“Yup. Gotten pretty good with a needle and thread.”

“You should have gone to a doctor.”

“Ain’t anyone I trust other than Angie, and she was in some remote village in Ghana at the time. Couldn’t exactly hop on a plane and get to her.”

“Then you should carry a dermal regenerator. Surely she could lend you one.”

“Probably,” Jesse murmurs, and Hanzo meets his eyes, before realising he is still holding onto Jesse’s arm and letting it go. “But that ain’t a problem anymore. I’m smarter now,” he says with a smirk and wink. “Don’t let them get too close to me anymore.”     

Hanzo hums, pressing his hand to the right side of his waist. “Someone got close to me once, too.”

“Oh yeah? What happened?”

“I got complacent, it almost saw me killed.” Hanzo cannot help but smile at the memory now, at how cocky, how smug he was. It was his third assassination attempt, he bested them, of course, started gloating, and that is when the second one made an appearance, plunging the dagger knife into his side. He did manage to take care of them too and was thankful they were so distracted with doing him harm that they did not see the gun tucked into his jacket.

“Happens to the best of us.”

Hanzo smiles, looking at Jesse. “It did not happen again.”

“I bet. You let people get close once.”

Hanzo nods, looking out the windshield as Jesse finds a car space. By sheer luck, they find one on the street without having to make a second pass, and head to the grocery store. They split up, Hanzo tackles fruit and vegetables and Jesse goes to the deli and butcher meeting again once they’re done.

“So I’m guessing you had an alias, taking bounties.”

“Ken Okado.”

“Not bad, not bad.” Jesse looks at his phone, before grabbing several bags of chips and placing them in the trolley. “Used one myself. Several, in fact. Couldn’t trust I was being followed, that the people I was handing in these bounties to wouldn’t turn on me.” He looks back at his phone, continuing on. “Did ninety-nine per cent of the job online, without making contact with those who wanted these bounties. Some, though, some wanted a face-to-face meeting, I’d do the bounty then split, burn the identity, make a new one with new papers, social security, the works.”

“Costly.”

“Jobs paid well. It was a bigger inconvenience more than anything, going to all that effort just to do it from the start again. But it kept me busy between jobs, y’know?”

Hanzo hums, following beside Jesse. They are silent for a while, and Hanzo is honestly at a loss as to what to say. He has been craving alone time with Jesse for weeks, and now that he has it, words truly escape him. The company is enjoyable, though, walking alongside him, doing this purely domestic task, something not requiring his attention to be on a mission, or to be completely mindful of other people around.

Though Jesse  _is_ uncharacteristically quiet, as he gathers the last of the groceries, as he uses the checkout, as they work in tandem to bag everything up and when they carry it out of the store, back to the car.

“There’s one more thing I gotta do,” Jesse murmurs, closing the trunk. “And I can’t think of a way to…” he looks away, shrugs, and Hanzo can see the redness in his cheeks.

“Is this what you have to ‘remember’?”

Jesse’s eyes snap to meet Hanzo’s, and he nods. “You might as well come with, that way I know I’m getting the right one.”

Hanzo cannot help but smile, following beside Jesse again. He walks straight into a liquor store, knows exactly where he is going, and stops in an aisle, in front of the sake. “Wanted to get you a little something, for passing your probationary period. Figured you deserved it an’ all,” he mumbles, talking to the alcohol. “Take your pick, it’s on me.”

“I am curious to know which one were you going to choose.”

He glances at Hanzo, just for a moment, before looking back at the sake, sighing and picking up his favourite honjozo sake and handing it over. “Spoke to Genji, said this was your preference.”

“This is very thoughtful,” Hanzo murmurs, swiping thumb over the label. “There is no need to get me anything, though.”

“I’m buying, it’s fine.”

Hanzo glances at Jesse, then looks back at the bottle and smiles. He knows how generous Jesse is, and he knows Jesse is not going to back down, that once he has made his mind up on something, he does not stop until the task is done. And Hanzo would be lying if he said he was not craving some good quality sake. “We share this.”

Jesse jerks his head, looking at Hanzo. “Naw, don’t need to waste good sake on someone who won’t appreciate it.”

“This is my gift, yes?”

“Uhh… yeah?”

“Then we will share it. Provided you do not smoke for the rest of the day, you should be able to taste the flavours tonight.”

“Tonight?” Jesse asks, amused. “What if I got plans?”

“It is movie night, and your pick at that. Since when do you have plans that do not involve putting on one of your movies?”

“That’s my point.”

“We will watch a movie of your choosing, and we will drink sake.”

“You wanna watch one of my movies? You never showed an interest before.”

Hanzo shrugs. “I have seen many of them already,” he murmurs.

“Really now?” Jesse says, smile growing wider. “Never woulda thought you’d be the spaghetti western type.”

Hanzo only smirks. He will not admit he is indeed a fan of them and will take that secret to the afterlife. “Are we in agreement?”

“Yeah,” Jesse chuckles. “Sake and a movie, sounds like a plan.” He holds his hand out for the bottle, and Hanzo hands it over. He watches as Jesse walks away, and once he is at the counter, Hanzo gives into the excitement positively pulsing through him at the thought of spending the evening with him, too.


	28. “I felt it… You know what I mean.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jesse and Hanzo
> 
> Mentions of alcohol and drinking

Jesse never saw himself as the kind of guy who would fall head-over-heels in love. He never once thought he would settle down, have a family, live a plain and boring life, get old and die in his sleep surrounded by loved ones. 

In his teens, he was too busy getting into trouble with the law. In his twenties, he was too busy being a badass on the  _right_ side of the law. After Blackwatch, he was on the move too much. Hopping from county to county, doing bounty after bounty. Sure, he met people. Sure, he’d pick people up at bars, take them back to his motel for the night, but he’d be gone the next morning, often before they woke up and realised just who he was.

He’s lived a life too reckless for such thoughts. But as he sits here, on this couch, watching ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’ with half a bottle of sake positively thrumming through his system, with Hanzo curled up against him, asleep with his head on his shoulder… It’s all he can think about.

It’s probably the alcohol. Yeah, Hanzo’s easy on the eyes. He’s damn impressive on the training range, and is an absolute hoot when he’s got a bit of alcohol in his system to loosen him up. His smile is infectious, his laugh makes Jesse’s stomach flutter fiercely, and when Ree came to visit yesterday, it took her all of one hour to pull him aside and ask what the hell was up because apparently he’s been staring at Hanzo and didn’t even realise.

He lied through his teeth, said it was nothing, that he and Hanzo had become good friends. Ree, though, Ree saw right through it, called him out and he admitted that there  _might_ be something more.

Ree, his trusty voice of reason, advised him against it, very soberly reminded him of what Hanzo did to Genji. It stopped him for all of half a second before he told her that he wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t given a second chance, so he should extend that same courtesy to Hanzo.  _And_ that Genji said to trust him, which he did and does. Ree looked unconvinced, but he told her to talk to Genji about it.

Jesse’s not sure what Genji said to change her tune yesterday, but today Ree was all over him, practically thinking up their first date. It got Jesse a little giddy, he said he wanted to get Hanzo something for passing his probation. Brainstorming led to sake, which led to asking Genji what his favourite bottle was, which led to the bottle shop where Hanzo made plans for the perfect first date, and Jesse’s not really sure Hanzo knew it at the time.

Well. That’s to say that what he had planned was Jesse’s perfect idea for a first date. Alcohol and westerns? Doesn’t get better than that.

But it did get better.

In the minutes after the movie was put on, once people realised it was indeed another western, where they decided to stay or go, the usual entire watchpoint who attend movie night was whittled down to him and Hanzo, Hana, Brigitte and Torbjörn.

Torbjörn lasted twenty minutes before he was softly snoring on other couch. Hanzo was asleep five minutes after that. Jesse could tell he was getting tired by the way he curled his legs beside himself and leaned against Jesse just that little bit. He was doing that adorable thing where his head was falling forward as his eyes grew heavier, only to jerk himself awake. But he finally fell asleep, head resting against the back of the couch before slowly falling to the side, where he ended up against Jesse’s shoulder. 

Jesse was thankful for many things. One, his arm was resting against the back of the couch at the time, and when Hanzo fell asleep, he had the ability to just brush his fingertips against his shoulder. Two, the room was empty save for the other three, and Hana and Brigitte were too distracted with trying to decide how to stack chips on Torb. As long as they were quiet, he didn’t really care what they did.

“… _wait till we’re done_ ,” Hana says over the sound of the movie, and Jesse brings his hand up on the couch again, “before giving us the scare of our lives. Unlike a  _certain_ cowboy.”

“Just like to throw it back in your faces,” Jesse murmurs. Every time they try it on him, assuming he is asleep, he does, in fact, enjoy holding still and scaring the living daylights out of them. “Give you a taste of your own medicine.”

“You’re lucky Hanzo’s asleep on you,” Hana retorts, “otherwise he’d be the target, considering he’s  _never_ asleep in here.”

Jesse all but bristles in response to that. No way is he going to let her get anywhere near Hanzo. Not when this is just absolutely perfect. They go back to talking in hushed whispers, and Jesse glances over, watches as Hana reaches for the bag of chips on the table, and they have claimed their next victim. He leaves them be, as long as it doesn’t wake Hanzo he doesn’t care.

He risks bringing his hand back down again, this time resting on Hanzo’s shoulder, given the girls are too busy with Torb to notice. He tries to focus on the movie, but with Hanzo against him, he just can’t. He didn’t realise how much he wanted  _this_ , sleepy cuddles on a couch with someone who knows about him, his history and didn’t run away or judge him for it.

Not only that, he realises just how much Hanzo trusts him, getting comfortable enough to let his guard down, to sleep. Jesse’s not entirely sure he would if the roles were reversed, and it’s not because he doesn’t trust Hanzo, it’s just something that’s ingrained into him, something which has been for most of his life, to sleep with one eye open, never letting his guard down.

And right now, he wants nothing more than to give in and let that guard down, trust Hanzo as Hanzo clearly trusts him. But when he hears a yelp from Brigitte, sees how she takes Hana’s hand and races out of the room, he holds Hanzo just that little bit tighter, like holding him tight will protect him from  _that_ , and by some miracle, he stays asleep.

The same can’t be said about Torb, though, as he chuckles, picks a chip off his chest and eats it, before tipping the rest of them into the abandoned packet on the floor. “Children,” he says as he sits up, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. He groans as he stands up, packet still in hand. “I am going to bed before they come back for round two.”

“‘Night,” Jesse murmurs, watching Torb leave the room, and he breathes a sigh of relief, now that the room is empty, looking at Hanzo. He smiles before turning his attention back to watch the movie.

Or he tries to, at least, but he can’t help but look down at Hanzo, stroke his shoulder with his thumb. He feels a flutter in his stomach, and he doesn’t know whether it’s the alcohol, or the mood, or coming to terms with the fact that he  _is_ in love with Hanzo, but he can’t help but lean in and kiss the top of his head before nuzzling against him.

He watches the final minutes of the movie, not really paying attention to it given how focused he is on this moment right now, and when the credits roll, he sighs, knowing he should get Hanzo to bed before he too falls asleep and they get found like this. Pulling his head up, he giving Hanzo a gentle shake to wake him up.

Hanzo sits up slowly, looking from the TV to Jesse. “I fell asleep,” he mumbles.

“Sure did.” Jesse grabs the remote from beside him, turning off the TV. “C’mon, let’s get you to bed.” He stands, offering Hanzo his hand, and Hanzo takes it, standing up. Hanzo looks at him, hand still in Jesse’s, sheepish little smile on his face before he weaves their fingers together.

They walk in silence, hand in hand, and Jesse’s heart pounds in his chest. The walk to Hanzo’s room is short, too short, he could do laps of the watchpoint for hours like this, but they stop in front of it, Hanzo presses his thumb to the keypad and the door opens.

“I had an enjoyable evening,” Hanzo says. “Though we will have to watch the movie again, I missed most of it.”

“Yeah, should raincheck on it.”

Hanzo smiles, looks at their joined hands before pulling away, and Jesse’s heart all but aches for his touch again. “Goodnight, Jesse.”

“‘Night.”

Hanzo takes a step inside, but once he’s over the threshold he turns back, smirking. “I felt it,” he says, and Jesse’s stomach drops. Then, he winks. “You know what I mean.” And with that, he closes the door, and Jesse just stares at it dumbfounded, in shock,  _embarrassed_ , and can’t move.

There is only one thought in his head.

Hanzo felt the kiss.

_Hanzo felt the kiss._

When he does move, it’s with purpose. He walks right up to Ree’s door, knocks until she answers, and the second it opens, he grabs her hand and pulls her out. “I did something stupid and I’m about ready to explode.”


	29. "At least it can't get any worse."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jesse and Fareeha
> 
> Mentions of alcohol and drinking, tobacco use, coarse language

“Jesse.  _Jesse_! Will you please talk to me?!”

Jesse shakes his head and continues pulling Fareeha down the corridor, into the rec room, through the door and into the still, cool night. Standing in front of the little two-seater table, he finally lets go of Ree’s hand, reaching into his pocket for his cigar and matches, lighting up, and the second that familiar, comforting flavour hits his tongue, he all but groans, dropping wordlessly into the chair.

He hears the opposite chair scrape against the concrete, watching as an indignant looking Ree glares back at him as she slinks into the chair, clasping her hands on the table.

“What the  _fuck_ , Jesse?”

“I kissed him.”

“You…” She searches his face, her expression morphing between anger and relief. “And that is grounds for you  _dragging_ me out of my room at eleven p.m.?”

“Sorry,” he mumbles, looking away and puffing on his cigar.  

Ree sighs, long and loud, and Jesse lets her have her moment, he did barge in and act like a complete child. A stupid, drunk child.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, meeting her gaze.

“It’s—” Ree takes a breath and holds it, before letting it out slowly. “You could have asked to come in,” she says, gentle.

“Needed a smoke. Haven’t smoked since this morning.”

“Didn’t realise you were quitting,” she says, amused, and Jesse huffs a laugh.

“He asked if I wouldn’t.”

“He—wow,” she says with the same wonder a kid has going to their first amusement park. “You must really like him, then.”

“Said I’d be able to taste the flavours of the sake if I didn’t.”

“Could you?”

Jesse looks at her, smirk teasing his lips. “Fairly certain my taste buds died a long time ago.”

“Jesse,” she snorts, covering her mouth with her hand. “I hope you didn’t tell him that.”

“How could I? ‘Hey, I know you asked if I could hold off on the smoking so I can taste this? Still can’t taste it.’” Jesse sighs, looking at Ree. “I told him not to waste it on me, but he insisted.”

“You really do like him.”

“You got no idea,” Jesse murmurs.

“So what stupid thing have you done that involves dragging me into the freezing cold at close to midnight?” she asks, wrapping her cardigan around herself tight, folding her arms over her chest.

“I kissed him.”

“You said.” Ree smirks. “Did he not like it?”

Jesse glares at Ree, feeling suddenly attacked like his kissing skills are in question. “I kissed him on the head while he slept.”

“Oh. Okay. Well… At least it can’t get any worse,” she says, and Jesse can hear the dread in her voice, because she is starting to work out that yes, yes it fucking can. “Right?”

“Oh no, it does.” Jesse closes his eyes, pressing his thumb between his brows. “He knew I did it.”

“Jesse,” she says, practically laughing, and when Jesse opens his eyes to scowl at her, she slaps a hand over her mouth. She looks away, and Jesse rolls his eyes, puffing on his cigar while she gets it out of her system. “Okay,” she breathes, hand hovering over her mouth. Her smile drops, she holds still for a moment and nods, before pulling her hand away. “Sorry. How  _did_ he react, then? I’m assuming, given this,” she says, gesturing at him with the wave of her hand, “that he didn’t like it.”

“Well for one, I did it, he didn’t even so much as flinch, then pretended to be asleep for the rest of the movie.”

“Maybe he was processing it, and didn’t want to embarrass you.”

“So then we walk back to his room holding hands.”

“Cute.”

“We say goodnight, and then he tells me.”

“What did he say, exactly?”

“‘I felt it.’” Jesse winks. “‘You know what I mean.’ Then he closes his door.”

“He winked?”

“Yup.”

“Hanzo?”

“Yes,” Jesse retorts, exasperated. “What does that mean?”

“Did you actually properly kiss before he said that, or after, or at all?”

“No,” Jesse sighs, looking at the burning tip of his cigar. “Honestly, when he turned around, I thought he was gonna ask me to come in and ah…” he glances at Ree, smiles sheepishly and waves his hand, “you know.”

Ree rolls her eyes. “Not everyone is as promiscuous as you.” She looks at him, offering a soft smile. “He didn’t call you out on it, demand an explanation, tell you to keep away from him. I think it’s a good thing.”

“You don’t think I blew it?”

“Nup. Not at all. I think you’ve overreacted—”

“Thanks.”

“And I think you’re being dramatic—”

“You can blame the half bottle of sake for that.”

“But I don’t think you’ve blown it.” Ree pauses, leans back in her seat. “Do you think he had so much to drink that he  _wouldn’t_ remember this in the morning?”

“We’re talking about a man who likes a drink about the same as me. His steps weren’t even wonky.”

“And do you think he will regret it in the morning?”

“I…” Jesse takes a breath and holds it, he really doesn’t want to think about Hanzo regretting it, because he’s certain it’ll crush him. “Don’t know,” he says, exhaling and staring into the darkness. “We could talk to Genji again, he seemed to be hinting heavily that Hanzo was interested.”

“ _I_  don’t think he would regret it, if that helps.”

Jesse looks at Ree and smiles. “It does.”

“And what do  _you_  think about it. Do you regret it?”

“Fuck no. I’m embarrassed because I should have known better.” He smiles. “All I could think was how much I want it to be real. Kissing him on his head, resting mine on top, snuggling, kissing him for real.” He looks at the lingering, smoldering hints of his cigar, placing it on the ashtray to extinguish completely. “I want it so bad,” he murmurs.

“Been thinking about kissing him a lot?”

Jesse hums, resting his head on his hand. He’s thought about wanting to kiss Hanzo since the first time he saw him use his bow on the training range. Wanted to make a move that night in the bar, every other time in the training range, every other time they went to the bar and sat in their little corner. But he would chicken out. Every time.

“Okay, I get it, I can practically  _hear_  the cogs turning,” Ree groans. “Why haven’t you done anything about it.”

Jesse stares at her with the most deadpan expression he can muster. “Six months. It’s a bit desperate.”

“Six months  _is_ a long time, especially if you’re living in the same place together. I bet you see him more than you don’t.”

“Yup. We’re pretty close friends. Eating, training, gym, missions… it’s pretty much all done together.”

“And I bet he feels the same way.”

“I hope so,” Jesse murmurs.

“Well, he held your hand, right?”

“He did. I helped him up off the couch, he did this…” he holds his hands up and links his fingers together.

“See?” She stands, and gives him one of those famous Amari stares that throws him right back into his early years of Overwatch when he used to get them from Ana. “You have nothing to worry about. Tomorrow you will talk to him, you will tell him how you feel, and you will kiss him. Clear?”

“Yes,  _mom_.”

“And now, you will walk me back to my room, because it is freezing out here and I’m tired.”

Jesse picks his cigar from the ashtray, looks at the extinguished tip before placing it back in his pocket, pushing the chair in and giving Ree the biggest hug he can without crushing her. “Thank you for easing my mind,” he whispers.

“Any time,” Ree replies, rubbing his back with her hand. “Though next time,  _please_ have your meltdown it in my room, not out here.”

Jesse smiles. He thinks about arguing the point, but through her eyes, his behaviour could be classed as a meltdown. “Will do,” he whispers, giving her a kiss on the cheek before pulling away, offering her elbow. “M’lady.”

“Stop,” she says, rolling her eyes but despite  _still_ obviously hating it, she wraps her hand around his arm.

Jesse tips his hat, walking her inside. He thinks about what she said, about talking to Hanzo tomorrow, and he cannot stop smiling about the thought of giving in, letting him know how he feels, and finally kissing him.

He’s so giddy at the prospect of it all, there’s probably no way he’ll be able to sleep tonight.


	30. "Do we really have to do this again?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zarya, Reinhardt, Jesse, Hanzo, Fareeha

“Come on.” Zarya rests her elbow on the table, wiggling her fingers. “Give me a challenge, old man.”

“Do we really have to do this again?” Reinhardt responds. “You challenge me every time, and every time I win.”

“I just go easy on you,” she winks. “Come.”

“Fine,” Reinhardt sighs, sitting down. He looks at her hand as he rests his elbow on the table, and meets her gaze when he clasps hers.

“Three, two, one,” Zarya says, and pushes back against Reinhardt’s hand. They stay in this stalemate for a moment, longer than normal.

Reinhardt glances at her for just a moment. “Someone is improving.”

Zarya feels him push against her hand, and she resists. “I am always improving.”

“I am a crusader,” Reinhardt says, pushing harder against her.

“You are old,” she replies meeting his smirk with her own.

“No one is stronger than a crusader.”

Zarya takes a breath and holds it, pushing back against Reinhardt as hard as she can, but still lacks the strength to resist him. Knowing she could get close to hurting herself, she concedes, again, and Reinhardt pushes her arm down onto the table.

“How many is that? Five-zero?”

“I do not want to hurt you,” Zarya says, flexing her hand. She looks at him and grins. “Or wound your pride. You are a crusader, after all.”

“Ah, to have youthful energy,” Reinhardt says, standing. He takes the towel from around his shoulders and wipes his face. “You are bound to defeat me one day, you made me sweat today.” He places a hand on her shoulder and gives it a firm squeeze as he walks past her to the powerlifting bars.

Sighing, Zarya looks at her palm, before balling her hand into a fist and standing, making her way to the dumbbells to do bicep curls. She has been with Overwatch for three weeks now, and was in awe of the sheer strength on display. It is to be expected, given how physical their missions can be, but when she first laid eyes on Reinhardt, she knew she had to climb that mountain.

She needs to start smaller, though. Not prey on the smaller bodies that also inhabit the watchpoint, no, there is no honour in defeating someone who isn’t her equal in size.

Picking up a 25kg dumbbell in each hand, she starts her set. The gym is busy today, busier than normal, with most of the equipment in use. She eyes off Brigitte on the bench press and nods in approval. She will have to ask her for a rematch to see if she has improved. Fareeha is on the treadmill, and Zarya plans on asking her while she is here. She looks at Hana beside her and doesn’t even think about it, Zarya is sure she can snap her in two.

Sighing, she looks at the cowboy beside her, also with 25kg dumbbells, following his arms to his thick biceps and she nods; he will be good practice.

“How about you?”

The cowboy doesn’t say anything, just continues his set, hardened eyes looking straight ahead. She follows his gaze to Hanzo, doing squats, and she has been meaning to challenge him for a while, given how much he works out. He would be a worthy opponent, indeed.

She looks back at the cowboy as he grunts, and she narrows her eyes, watching as he holds the weight at the top of each curl, raises an eyebrow and smirks, and she glances back at Hanzo, who is meeting him with an equally ridiculous stare, and she looks at everyone else to see if they are watching this too, and her gaze falls on Fareeha as she rolls her eyes and says something to Hana which has her giggling.

At least she isn’t crazy thinking this is weird, and she wants it to stop before it gets more uncomfortable. “Cowboy,” she says, louder than before to get his attention.

It takes him a moment, before he blinks rapidly and glances at her. “Sorry, Zar, was in another world. What’s up?”

“You and me, arm wrestle. What do you say?”

“Ahh, no,” he replies. “I just saw you take on Rein and almost win.”

“I’ll let you use your prosthetic hand, then.”

“Nope,” he says, chuckling. “That’ll be an unfair advantage on my part.”

“You do not want to impress Hanzo, then?”

Jesse smiles, then it immediately drops from his face. “I uh…”

“Or is losing to me too much of a bruise to your ego?” She asks, watching as Hanzo finishes his squats, walks over to the corner of the room and have a drink from his bottle. She places the dumbbells down and winks at a still speechless Jesse, before turning her back on him and approaching Hanzo.

“Would you be interested in an arm wrestle?”

Hanzo pulls the bottle away and smiles. “I would not be opposed to it.”

“Good. I have watched you train, you will be a worthy challenger.”

“And I you.” He places his bottle on the ground and extends an arm to the table. “Your skills are impressive.”

“I was training to be a bodybuilder before the attack on my village,” she says, sitting down and resting her elbow on the table. She glances at Jesse as he places his dumbbells down, winking when he approaches. “My training regimen is not as strict as it once was, but I try to maintain it.”

“A noble goal,” Hanzo replies, clasping her hand.

“Three, two, one,” she says, pushing against Hanzo. She smirks when he pushes back just as hard, she knew he wouldn’t be a pushover. They remain in this standoff, though, every time she tries to move he counters, and any time he tries, she counters. “You are stronger than I thought.”

“The feeling is mutual,” Hanzo responds. “I think it might be worth stopping, it seems we are equal in strength.”

Digging deep and using every ounce of strength she has, she pushes against him, and he matches it. She can feel her arm shake, she knows she doesn’t have much left in her, and Hanzo looks about the same, if the flush in his cheeks is anything to go by. “On three, we stop.”

Hanzo nods. “One, two, three.”

She cautiously lessens the tension, not above pushing back against him if he does, but he doesn’t, and he lets go of her hand. “A fair fight.”

“Indeed.” Hanzo looks at Jesse and smirks. “Your turn.”

“Nup. Zar’s a bodybuilder, and you practically live in this gym. If you can’t take her, I don’t have a snowball’s chance. I only come here so Angie stays off my ass, not to increase my muscle mass.” He glances towards Fareeha, smirk teasing his lips. “Ree, your turn.”

“You’re on,” Fareeha says, slowing to a walk before stopping. She wipes her face with her towel, leaving it hanging on the arm of the treadmill before taking Hanzo’s spot. “This will not be a fair fight, but I will never turn down an arm wrestle.” She clasps Zarya’s hand and nods.

“Three, two, one,” Zarya says, and is almost taken by surprise as Fareeha pushes against her hand, almost displacing her. She pushes back harder, and after a moment’s struggle, Zarya manages to push her hand against the table.

“Told you,” Fareeha says, smirking.

“Nonsense, you almost had me. You, too, are stronger than you look.” Zarya looks at Jesse again. “Last chance, cowboy.”

“And I’m gonna have to decline. Thank you for the offer, though.”

“I will get you to wrestle with me one day,” she says, standing. “Thank you for the challenge, Fareeha.”

“Any time,” Fareeha replies, standing up. “Jess, can I…” and she tilts her head to the side, and the cowboy nods, following behind her.

“Zarya,” Hanzo says with the bow of his head, before approaching the treadmill beside Hana, and Zarya looks back at Reinhardt as he does his set.

She picks up her water bottle, takes a series of gulps, places it back down and picks up her deadlifting belt, putting it on and walking up to Reinhardt, standing beside him. “Old man.”

“Young blood.”

Zarya smiles as she hefts up a 90 kg barbell to warm up. If she has plans on beating everyone here at an arm wrestle, she has work to do.


	31. "I've waited so long for this."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hanzo and Jesse

Hanzo is avoiding Jesse.

It is not because of the kiss. If Hanzo had the ability to pause time, he would live in that moment forever. There was a tenderness to it, something that spoke volumes about his feelings without actually having to  _say_ the words.

Jesse’s hand on his shoulder made his heart skip a beat, his thumb or fingertips rubbing soothing circles made his stomach flutter, and when Jesse rested his head against Hanzo’s, it was like icing on the cake.

The entire moment was perfect, which is why Hanzo did not want to say anything.

Well, that is to say, he was trying to find the perfect thing  _to_ say, but as time dragged on, he grew so comfortable he ended up in this state of consciousness and unconsciousness, knowing he could just fall asleep if given the opportunity and just did not want to, wanting to live in that moment for as long as he could.

By the time the movie was over, how  _could_ Hanzo say anything? His heart was screaming at him for not doing  _or_  saying anything, for not reciprocating in some way, and his brain was holding him back, telling him that he should at least wait until the morning, when he was not intoxicated, to say something.

Or at the very least, make a move, considering Jesse had made the first one.

When Jesse helped him off the couch, fingertips brushing against his rough hands, Hanzo knew he could not let him go. Why wait until the morning to make a move, when he can do it now? So he took his hand and enjoyed the short walk him back to his room.

What happened next, the words he uttered, he wishes he could take them back. He does not regret saying them, he regrets the timing. Who ends a perfect day with  _I felt it… you know what I mean_?

He blames the sake. He has two moods when drunk—wallowing in self-pity, or mouthy and incredibly talkative. The talkative side only rears its head when he is with people, so he supposes it  _could_ have been worse, but the second the words left his mouth and he closed his door, he buried his head in his hands and immediately regretted it.

He did not sleep, he instead spent the night tossing and turning, repeating what he said over and over again in his mind. When the first hints of dawn broke, he got up and had breakfast. The second he heard the rest of the base rise for the day, he went to the gym. He could not face Jesse, not yet. He needed the clarity of a good workout session given sleep offered him none.

When his eyes settled on Jesse when he entered the gym, he was thankful that the room was full. Jesse would not say anything or make a move with people around, and neither would Hanzo. As the time ticked by, as Hanzo watched Jesse as he worked out, he put on quite the show. Hanzo had never looked at Jesse in  _that_  way, as his muscles positively bulged with each movement, under the tension of the weights he was holding, and he would be lying if he did not give Jesse an equally good show. 

He realised, at that moment, that what he said was said, that avoiding Jesse was foolish. He also realised that the atmosphere had changed between them. There was this level of tension, which was to be expected, but it was not frustration or anger.

It was desire.

Still, they went about their workout, and only once Hanzo’s stomach protested with an angry growl and he realised he had been in the gym for five hours already, he left. Jesse was sparring with Fareeha at the time, so it made slinking away easy.

It also gave him the time to prepare to talk to Jesse. He did not want to talk to him all sweaty from his workout, reeking with body odour. No, when he planned on talking to Jesse, he would be fresh and clean, his mind clear.

So here he sits,  _still_ regretting what he said, in the mess hall past the lunch rush, waiting for Jesse. Hanzo is not sure where Jesse is, whether he is still in the gym, or whether he has gone back to his room to shower and change, but looking at the time, knowing he has been sitting here for almost two hours, he thinks about getting on with his day.

Jesse clearly did not like what Hanzo had said, and Hanzo probably embarrassed the man. Despite what he  _thought_ he felt in the gym, he must have been wrong.

With a sigh, he stands, sliding his phone in his pocket, picking up his empty plate and taking it to the dishwasher. He fills the kettle with water, placing it on the stove to heat up, with the intention of making himself a cup of tea, one for Genji too, so they can discuss what happened. He needs to get this off his chest, and if he cannot talk to Jesse about it, he can talk to Genji, because he will ease his mind.

That is, until he hears Jesse’s low timbre of a laugh when he enters the mess hall, followed by Fareeha who is telling a story. Hanzo busies himself, getting the teapot ready until he hears them enter the kitchen, and Fareeha stops mid-sentence, just for a moment, before wrapping up her story in a manner of seconds.

“I’ll ah… be around,” she says, and Hanzo hears her fading footsteps before he looks over his shoulder.

“Hey,” Jesse says quietly, shoving his hands in his pockets and gesturing at the stove with the jerk of his head. “Making tea?”

“Yes,” Hanzo replies. “Would you like a cup?”

“Love one, thanks.” Jesse walks up to the bench, leaning against it. “Kinda wanna talk to you, actually.”

“About last night.”

“Yeah,” Jesse chuckles. “I want to apologise—”

“No, there is nothing to apologise for.  _I_  wish to apologise for saying what I said.”

“Han, you don’t need to apologise. I’m glad you told me… Now, at least. At the time, I was a bundle of nerves and confusion, but now…”

Hanzo turns away, his heart aching at the thought of causing Jesse this kind of hurt. “It was not my intention.”

“I know,” Jesse says softly, and Hanzo feels his hand on his shoulder. “We can blame the sake for many things last night,” he pauses, and Hanzo closes his eyes when he feels Jesse kiss the top of his head, his stomach flutters for every moment he stays there, and he aches when Jesse pulls away. “Everything ‘cept that. I meant that then, I mean it now.”

“Jesse,” Hanzo whispers, looking over his shoulder. He meets his gaze, turns, and Jesse enters his space, grabbing his hands.

“I enjoy the friendship we’ve developed. I love spending time with you, and I’m at a stage where I want it to be more.”

Hanzo cannot help but smile, and he squeezes Jesse’s hands tight. “I want the same thing.”

“Han,” Jesse murmurs, smiling back, and Hanzo lets go of his hands, stands on his toes and wraps his arms around Jesse. He closes his eyes when Jesse holds him tight, breathing in the smell of his soap on his skin and faint smoke on his clothes.

Stomach fluttering, Hanzo looks into Jesse’s eyes before flitting down to his lips, leaning in, slowly, brushing his lips against Jesse’s. He pulls back, just for a moment, and Jesse meets him, kissing softly. Closing his eyes, Hanzo kisses back, gentle, careful, slowly. There is no rush, nothing in the world that can’t wait for them, and when it naturally recedes, Hanzo presses one last kiss to the corner of Jesse’s mouth and embraces Jesse again, smiling when Jesse holds him tight.

“I’ve waited so long for this,” Jesse whispers.

“As have I.”

They stay in this embrace for moments, Hanzo is unsure of how many, and internally groans when the kettle starts to whistle.

“We have overheated the water.”

“Worth it,” Jesse murmurs, and Hanzo smiles when he feels Jesse chuckle, before he pulls away, only to turn off the stove top, before grabbing Hanzo’s hand and kissing his knuckles. “Ain’t ever gonna let go of this hand,” he says, weaving their fingers together. “C’mon, let’s go for a walk while we wait for the water to cool.”

Nodding, Hanzo follows beside Jesse as they walk past the rows of empty tables and chairs and outside, into the sunshine. He wraps his other hand around Jesse’s wrist, smiles when Jesse smiles back at him.

He is so incredibly happy, and nothing will ever wipe this smile off his face.  


End file.
